


We do ourselves no favors

by Alecto



Series: 5200 Miles To Go [5]
Category: Lucifer (TV), Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blackmail, Case Fic, Characters as Adults, Corporate Espionage, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Developing Relationship, F/M, M/M, Post-Canon, Post-Devil Face Reveal to Chloe Decker, Post-Episode: s03e24 A Devil of My Word, Post-Season/Series 03, Wordcount: 10.000-30.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-10-31 01:55:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 30,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17840195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alecto/pseuds/Alecto
Summary: Chloe investigates the brutal death of a man found in a tech CEO’s hotel suite. Lucifer grants an unusual favor to an actor. They haven't spoken in a month, but it should surprise no one when their paths inevitably cross.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, this is literally the most self-indulgent thing I've ever written. So kudos to you for clicking through. Hopefully, I've piqued your curiosity. 
> 
> Despite this being a crossover, the fic is more firmly set in the Lucifer setting. I've written this in such a way where you can treat the crossover element as the background case element for the usual Lucifer shenanigans. The series designation is to place this fic in the appropriate timeline for the YGO characters, but the series is not required reading first. I've taken a page out of the Vertigo comicverse where there's a bit of "all gods/supernatural beings are real" to merge the YGO setting.

Chloe paused on the threshold of the crime scene and took three steadying breaths. For the briefest moment, the image of a marbled rotunda splattered with blood and feathers overlaid the resplendent hotel suite. She blinked and forced the memory back into a mental safe box.

Marcus, no, _Cain_ was dead.

She had to focus. This was her first active case since IA buried the department under inquiries in the wake of the Sinnerman fiasco. It had been—continued to be a clusterfuck. How could it not when she’d fired her service weapon at her superior officer/ex-fiance of less than a month? But it wasn't a repeat of Palmetto thanks to Charlotte's rigorous investigative work. Pierce’s aloofness hadn’t endeared him to his fellow officers, least of all to the department’s “old boys’ club.”

Thank God. Heaven. Thank whatever for that. Chloe’s career wouldn't survive a second round as the department pariah. It was all the more important she did right by this case—for the victim, for the department, and for herself and her forever skating in the orbit of scandal.

She glanced over her shoulders, half-expecting or dare she say, half-hoping to see a tall figure in a trim, three-piece suit. She hadn't called him, but he showed up at places he was never invited to. Now she wasn't sure if she could chalk it up to his usual him-ness or something more preternatural.

"Chlo, you okay?" Dan asked, still holding up the crime scene tape for her. He'd arrived first almost an hour ago to back up Ella and the rest of the unis.

She forced her spine straight and put on a professional face. "Yeah, sure, sure."

Dan and she shared a long look. It buoyed her. They had spent a lot of time together in the last month: bonding with Trixie, planning Charlotte's wake, and treading the fallout from Pierce's death. It almost felt like when they were dating, except their affection for each other was firmer with platonic roots. They would always be family even if they would never be husband and wife again. They walked side-by-side to the body lying on the plush, once-white carpet.

Ella snapped another photo and jumped to her feet. "Hey, guys! Good to have you here. The gang is getting back toge—" she cut herself off with an abrupt snap when she eyed the empty spot behind Chloe.

Chloe held up a hand to head off Ella's apology. "It's fine. Let's focus on our case."

Even as she spoke, her mind raced to catalog all the details of their victim: male, brown hair, wearing a tailored suit in ice blue, over 6 feet tall (though not quite as tall as him). She slipped into a pair of gloves from her pockets, before squatting down to get a better look at the deceased's face, which had swollen into a riotous collage of red, black, and purple. It made it difficult to guess his age at a glance. Part of the skull was bashed, scalp shredded to reveal a smear of blood and brain matter.

She swallowed around the lump in her throat. It was a brutal looking death. She hoped he hadn’t suffered too much. "What have you got so far, Ella?”

Ella launched into an assessment of the crime scene. "Our vic was tied to that chair." She pointed to an ornate chair now knocked over on its side, with bits of duct tape still stuck to the arms and the front two legs. An evidence placard labeled “3” sat on the floor next to it. "Whoever killed him beat him wicked first. The shape of the bruising suggests they used their bare hands. COD is blunt force trauma to the head though."

Chloe directed her attention to the heavy bronze statuette labeled by the "1" placard, lying several feet from where the chair had fallen. Even without the blood splatter, someone could describe the humanoid statue as ugly—or ghastly even. Ella had left the number "2" placard by a square space in the dust on a nearby console table. The area matched the statue’s base, making their murder weapon also a weapon of convenience.

Ella continued, "Rigor puts the time of death between 36 and 40 hours ago, but liver temp will give us a better estimate. It's unclear when he was moved afterward, but it was some time after actual time of death."

Chloe tilted her head as she took in the body’s final pose. Someone had folded the hands over one another across his chest and smoothed several locks of blood-slicked hair back like he or she were affectionately stroking a loved one. Between the murder weapon and the posing, this was looking more and more like a crime of passion.

"Door's intact though and hasn't been tampered with. So he must have known the killer, or the killer had a key,” Dan added.

"If the killer had a key, then they could have returned later and posed the body. Who found him?" Chloe asked.

Dan flipped through his notepad and reported, "A hotel maid found and reported the body. The room was booked by a Seto Kaiba."

"No freakin' way!" Ella's jaw dropped as genuine horror grew in her saucer-sized eyes. "Seto freakin' Kaiba?! That totally sucks!"

"Is he some kind of actor or a singer?" Chloe felt a headache creeping up on her. It would be her luck to land a high-profile celebrity murder after weeks and weeks of desk duty.

"Nuh uh, dude is like the king of nerds! Not that he is—wasn't also smoking hot. Cuz I would have totally hit that if you know what I mean. But I got mad respect for the dude first. He invented Solid Vision after all!" At Chloe's and Dan's blank looks, Ella muttered an exasperated "come on, people" before elaborating, "Holograms. Duel Monsters. KaibaCorp!"

Recognition dawned across Dan's face. "Right. His company makes that Duel Disk thing. Remember? Trixie wanted one for her seventh birthday?"

Chloe remembered. Neither of them relished turning down their daughter's plea, but it was a thousand-dollar tech gadget. She had called it “highway robbery.” They got her an iPad instead.

The throbbing in her temples morphed into a full-blown migraine. "This is going to be a media circus."

"You always did like the limelight, huh, buddy?" Ella gave the body a sad yet fond look.

They were barely ankle-deep into the scene when their acting lieutenant turned up. Their vic was well-known around the world, so it made sense the lieutenant felt the need to apply pressure. It didn't make the posturing any less insulting. Seto Kaiba may be a foreign national, but he was entitled to the same protections and due process as any US citizen murdered on American soil.

Ella recovered a smartphone and a leather wallet from the body’s pockets. A four-digit passcode prevented them from accessing the phone’s content. After a few paltry attempts to unlock it, Dan bagged and tagged it for Cyber to take a crack. The wallet contained 200 American dollars in cash, a handful of coins including yen coins, two credit cards under Seto Kaiba's name, a hotel keycard, and a Japanese identification card. She studied the ID card briefly, struggling to make sense of the unfamiliar characters. She didn't even know if the card was a driver's license or something else. But the man depicted in the image matched the ones provided by Google Images Search. Underneath the bruising, Seto Kaiba had been a handsome man in his early thirties.

She walked through the rest of the crime scene while Dan canvassed the neighbors. There were only three suites on this floor, so there were few people to interview. Hotel rooms were notoriously hard to recover useful trace evidence from. Cleaning services always cut corners, never able to achieve a clean slate for each new guest checking in. But there were clues pointing toward several people passing through the suite in recent days.

She started with the basic questions.

Why had Kaiba come to LA?

Was it for business or pleasure?

When did he arrive? When had he planned to leave?

Whom had he seen? Whom had he been in contact with in LA and in Japan?

Shit, she needed to notify next-of-kin, and they would need a translator.

 _Or Lucifer_ , a traitorous part of her mind suggested, _seeing as he speaks every language known to humankind._

This was Lucifer's world: the rich, the glamorous, and the powerful. He would know how to navigate these waters even if he wasn't... well, the Devil. She thumbed the phone weighing her pocket down like lead. Once. Twice. Then she dropped her hand back to her side.

-x-x-x-

Lucifer weaved through Lux's rapturous crowd. Women and men alike turned toward him like flowers tracking the sun's path across the sky. He deflected their covetous attention with ease, shrugging off teasing touches with an empty smile. The pulsing music should emulate the tangled passion between two bodies, but it struck like heavy beats of a war drum. He could find no pleasure in it.

He intended to spend the night alone, just like every other night since he last tried to take a leggy blond to bed.

For a week, he had tried to drown out the alternating cacophony and deafening silence inside his head with the usual: sex, drugs, and alcohol. It took less than five days for the attempts to wear on him. Bringing that up in his sessions led to Linda asking him to consider better coping mechanisms.

Linda and he once discussed the difference between being alone and being lonely. So what was he to do if he was now both?

Truth was he had been alone long before he recognized the loneliness. Mum left months before the debacle with Cain started. Now Charlotte had followed her too. His relationship with Maze had deteriorated so disastrously and quickly in mere weeks. They were still on the outs now, neither forgiven nor directly hostile. Amenadiel had been MIA since Charlotte's death, and now that his wings had returned, he might never come back to Earth. Daniel blamed him for withholding information about the Sinnerman. And the Detective—Chloe—

_"I can't deal with this now. I need space."_

Space to deal with the fallout from Cain's death and from Lucifer. He'd managed a cursory explanation before that, mostly the bare minimum about Cain and his motives. But they didn't have time with the police closing in on them at an active crime scene. He hadn't heard from her in three weeks. Three agonizing weeks since he plunged a hell-forged blade into Cain's blackened heart and regained his Devil face in time to blindside Chloe with the truth.

For a moment, anger burst to the forefront. She had demanded the truth only hours before. But his fury died as quickly as it rose, leaving him cold and empty again. He couldn't even summon up the familiar enmity toward his Father. The bitter revelations gifted by Amenadiel burned like venom through his veins. His Father had finally given him enough free will to hang himself with, and he had no one left to blame but himself.

There was one sliver of hope.

_"Don't leave town," she said in a forced attempt of humor._

Despite all his claims of not being a masochist, he clung to it like a lifeline. It was the one reason he didn't immediately take off for parts unknown. Purgatory may be a wholly Catholic invention, but he condemned himself to it all the same when he foolishly gave his word. Only one person could absolve him now.

Through the haze of alcohol and the sweat-laced crush of humanity, he caught scent of something unexpected but also as familiar as Hell’s ash-laden air. He spun on his heels and located the source in seconds: a man stalking him through the club. The shifting lights made it difficult to discern any finer detail other than blond hair. Lucifer headed toward the elevator to his penthouse, holding the door long enough to make eye contact with the man. He smirked and arched an eyebrow as a teasing invitation as the doors slid shut.

He glided over to the bar as soon as he exited the elevator, pouring two stiff tumblers of scotch. Then he waited. There was no mistaking the waves of fury rolling off the man. Whether it was directed at Lucifer himself mattered little. He could court danger all he wanted. His invulnerability and immortality were nigh guaranteed with the wide berth the Detective gave him nowadays.

He gave a small, vicious smile. Tonight might prove not to be a complete waste. Wrath was not the sin he usually indulged, but beggars couldn't be choosers.

The elevator dinged, announcing his guest. The man stepped off and swept his gaze across the penthouse. Despite his dressed down attire (definitely not club appropriate), he didn't seem awed by his surroundings. Based on that and the $5000 Air Jordans he wore, Lucifer knew this man was no stranger to wealth.

Lucifer approached and offered his visitor the second tumbler. His visitor hesitated for a moment before accepting though he didn't drink from it. Lucifer downed the last of his, disappointed by how little the liquor burned on its way down. He then allowed his eyes to rove over his visitor's handsome features: early thirties, Asian, and the arc of his desire bent toward either gender. But none of which was as intriguing as the bloodthirstiness radiating from him.

Lucifer's nostrils flared at the dark, heady scent.

"Are you him?" his visitor asked. "Lucifer Morningstar?"

"In the flesh," he purred and tipped his now empty glass in salute. "And to whom do I owe this pleasure?"

The visitor ignored the question and plowed ahead. "They say you grant favors. They say you're crazy but you're effective."

"I can grant your deepest and darkest desire, darling." Lucifer closed the distance between them, impressed when the man didn't flinch back. "Should it catch my fancy," he added as he wheeled back to pour himself another drink.

His visitor followed and placed the tumbler on the bar-top. Lucifer reached across and nudged it back toward his guest, but he refused to pick it up again. A waste of good scotch in Lucifer's opinion. His guest's gaze remained hard and fierce. He locked eyes, amber-colored like whisky, with Lucifer.

Lucifer almost laughed at how easy he'd made it. "Tell me then, what is it you desire?"

"I need to find Seto Kaiba's killer."

Lucifer didn't need to use his powers. The simple truth—the force of his guest's fervor—nearly bowled Lucifer over. The sheer grief and anguish could drive a sharp knife between his ribs were he not invulnerable.

"And what are you willing to give in return?"

"Anything."

Lucifer wasn't interested in collecting souls, but his guest had all but offered his in exchange. His grip on his glass tightened until it cracked. A high-pitched plonk sliced through the thick silence when he dropped it on the bar-top. "Careful, dear. You shouldn't be so quick to make promises. You will owe me a favor at some future date, and I _always_ collect."

His guest wore the face of someone with little left to lose. It was one Lucifer had glimpsed in the mirror more than once. "Deal."

-x-x-x-

Less than half of the murderboard was filled in. They were 10 hours into their investigation with little to show other than one dead corporate mogul and zero viable suspects. An enlarged photo of a stern-looking Seto Kaiba, lifted from the Japanese driver's license they recovered, was affixed above a timeline with a handful of labeled notches.

  * Saturday, 6 AM - Flight from SFO
  * Saturday, 7:35 AM - Flight into LAX
  * Saturday, 8:40 AM - Check in at the Beverly Hilton
  * Sunday, around 4 PM - Estimated time of death, 30 minutes after the keycard on Kaiba was last registered with the door lock



With an American office headquartered in the heart of Silicon Valley, Kaiba had a history of traveling between the US and Japan for business. This time, he had a return ticket from LAX to Japan ready for next week. The company had booked the hotel room where the murder occurred. Kaiba had also had no set appointments in LA after being booked solid for five days in San Francisco. Reconciling Kaiba's timeline would be like doing a jigsaw puzzle with half the pieces missing.

Canvassing at the hotel turned up nothing out of the ordinary. None of the staff found Kaiba particularly demanding or belligerent. A judge signed off on several warrants for Kaiba's financials and phone records an hour ago. So those might help fill in some gaps once the records came in.

Chloe dropped the access log for the hotel room and added another label to the timeline.

  * Sunday, 9:21 PM - Body was moved/posed?



Someone had entered the room via the second keycard issued at check-in. Now the question was where was this second keycard? And why hadn't they called the police?

Dan stomped in. "How's it looking?" he asked in lieu of a greeting.

She gestured to the whiteboard. "What do you think?"

"Yeesh, is the autopsy in yet?"

"Nope," she intoned bitterly. The lieutenant should have saved his heavy-handed pressure for the county morgue. "I called, and they said they're working on it. Pretty sure they don't want to release it without a positive ID."

When they'd first tried running their victim's fingerprints through the system, they found zero matches. It wasn't surprising given that Kaiba was a foreign national with no previous arrest record in the states. They needed the Japanese government or hospital to send over their prints on file for a direct comparison.

A uni stepped up to her desk. "Hey, Decker?"

She startled. "Yeah, Ramirez?"

"Someone from the Japanese embassy is waiting for you in the conference room," the uni reported before hurrying off to the break-room.

Huh, speak of the devil. Then she winced twice as fast and nearly strained her neck. She inclined her head at Dan. "Wanna come with?"

Dan swept a curious gaze across the bullpen. "Just you and me?"

She nodded her head and forced herself to breathe. "Yeah, just you and me."

Dan's visible relief, though, felt like a slap in the face.

An older man clad in a black suit held the door for her and Dan before resuming his guard position outside the conference room. He stood with his back straight, not quite at parade rest, and his face was half-hidden behind a dark pair of shades. Chloe wondered if he was a bodyguard. Inside, another man and woman both stood to greet them.

The woman was petite, Asian, and dressed in a pantsuit with her starched, white blouse buttoned neck-high. As she spoke, she pulled out two business cards and offered one each to Chloe and Dan with both hands. "I'm Yukiko Ishihara. I'm here on behalf of the Japanese embassy. I look forward to working with you. Please reach out if you need any translation resources."

"Thank you, Ms. Ishihara. We'll keep this in mind."

Yukiko gestured to the man next to her. "Allow me to introduce Mr. Mokuba Kaiba, Seto Kaiba's younger brother."

Chloe turned her attention to the younger Kaiba, matching his features to the profile she'd pulled together yesterday: late-twenties, black hair, gray eyes, and still baby-faced. Between his casual attire and long hairstyle, Mokuba Kaiba looked about 200% less severe than his older brother. Everything about him screamed quintessential SoCal if not for the dark circles under his eyes and his pinched expression.

"We're very sorry for your loss. I'm Detective Decker, and this is Detective Espinoza." She offered him a wan smile and hoped it translated across a language barrier.

Mokuba shook each of their hands, trembling slightly despite the firmness of his grip. To Chloe's surprise, he didn't need Yukiko's help. He spoke English with only the slightest accent. "Are you the detectives in charge of my brother's case?"

"I am," Chloe said as she took a seat directly across from him. "I wasn't aware you were also in town, Mr. Kaiba."

"Mokuba please." He sat after taking another shuddering breath. "No, I flew in as soon as the police contacted me. Arrived this morning. I would have been here sooner, but we went by the morgue first."

Chloe sat up straighter. Contrary to popular belief, the police didn't use family members to identify victims of violent crimes unless it was a last resort. It was cruel and liable to produce false IDs. He had to pull strings to get access, so why?

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Dan jot something on his notepad: _Guilty conscience?_

Maybe. But Chloe's gut told her that wasn't likely it.

"Thank you for coming in," she continued, "You must be exhausted, but it would help us if you could answer some questions about your brother."

"Ask away."

"When did you last speak with your brother?"

"I haven't heard from Seto since..." His eyes glazed over as he did the mental math. "Friday afternoon your time I think. We talked on the phone a bit. He wanted to go over the details of a grant we're about to give to the Children's Home Society of California."

"Your brother is the CEO, but you're in charge of the company's charitable giving program, right?"

"Yep, it's what I went to school for. I'm also very happy in my current position," he said, narrowing his eyes. He was already suspicious of Chloe's line of questioning. "I don't want his."

She'd let it slide for now. "Did he mention anything out of the ordinary when you spoke? Anything that might indicate he was in trouble? Or that he feared for his life?"

Mokuba snorted. "I won’t lie. My brother has no shortage of enemies, but he was never afraid. Detectives, I'm not sure that man in the morgue is Nii—" he stopped to compose himself, "I don't think he's my brother."

She stared at him across the table. "How can you be sure?"

"How can you be so sure he's Seto?" Mokuba challenged back. "The autopsy isn't complete yet. I talked to the M.E., and they don't have a positive ID yet. It could be anyone."

"Mister Kaib—" Dan started.

"Mokuba."

"Mokuba, we're operating under the facts of the case so far. We found the victim in your brother's hotel room, wearing your brother's clothes, with your brother's phone and wallet in his pocket. Often, these cases are as straightforward as they appear. You should be careful not to get your hopes up," warned Dan.

Mokuba chewed on his bottom lip and considered Dan's words. From his expression, Chloe saw he wasn't 100% convinced. Either way, she could use that to their advantage if she could convince Mokuba to cooperate without getting additional affidavits or warrants. Without Lucifer’s skill set, she didn't have her usual secret weapon to speed the case along. The sooner they settled the matter of their victim's identity, the better. One way or another, Seto Kaiba was connected to this murder.

"If there's anything you can give us that might speed along an ID, positive or otherwise, that would be great. Like his medical records?" she asked.

"Right." He directed his attention to the embassy attaché. "Ishihara-san, can you please have Isono pull Nii-san's medical records and his biometrics, fingerprints, DNA, and the likes from the company records? I would like to pass it to the police as soon as possible."

Yukiko cast a wary eye at the other dark-suited man guarding the door. Finally, she stood and bowed. "Please notify me if you need anything at all, Kaiba-san."

The room lapsed into silence when she left. Chloe swiveled in her seat to watch as she spoke to the bodyguard outside before they both walked away. When she turned back, she found Dan and Mokuba studying one another. She supposed now that they were alone with Mokuba, it might change the dynamics of the interview. She hoped he became more forthcoming, rather than less, with one less ear in the room.

It turned out to be the former.

"Have you spoken to Jounouchi yet?" Mokuba asked haltingly.

Chloe flipped through the list of Kaiba's most recent appointments. She was fairly sure she hadn't seen that name before. "Who's that? Was he supposed to meet with your brother?"

"Jounouchi Katsuya, no, sorry," Mokuba cursed under his breath as he regrouped. "His name is Katsuya Jounouchi, but he goes by Joey Wheeler here. It's his stage name."

Chloe furrowed her brow and wondered why that name sounded familiar. Then it hit her. "Joey Wheeler, the actor?"

Mokuba nodded. His gaze flickered down to the table before adding, "They're... old friends."

In that instant, Chloe sensed he wasn't telling them everything. Dan and she made eye contact, reaffirming each other's gut reaction through silent communication.

Mokuba continued, "I tried calling Jounouchi as soon as I heard. I've been calling him almost every hour since, but he's not picking up. He might be in danger."

"Or he’s involved with your brother's death." Dan leaned back in his seat, affecting an air of callousness as he tossed out the suggestion.

That got Mokuba's attention. The young man glared daggers at Dan, clenching his hands resting on top of the table into white-knuckled fists. "Jounouchi would never hurt Seto. Never! He—" Mokuba struggled to spit out whatever he wanted to say, so he settled for eviscerating Dan with his eyes.

Chloe leaned forward, catching Mokuba's gaze to interrupt the venom being thrown in Dan's direction. She gave him an encouraging smile and watched with sympathy as his anger crumbled as quickly as it had risen. "Okay, okay, why don't you share his contact information with us? We'll get in touch with him, maybe swing by his place to make sure he's okay."

Mokuba's shoulders slumped. "Yeah, anything I can do to help, Detectives."

-x-x-x-

Jounouchi woke to sunlight in his eyes and his own haggard reflection staring down from the polished ceiling. His back ached, stiff from a night spent on a couch. He winced as he peeled his bare arms from the leather and rose into a sitting position. Then he nearly fell off said couch with a startle.

"I knew I recognized you," the tall man in a silk robe standing at the feet of the couch crowed. "You're Joey Wheeler."

Okay, right, Lux the nightclub, Lucifer Morningstar, a promised favor to track down Kaiba's killer. It all came rushing back in one sickening wave.

Jounouchi scrubbed his hands over his face, rasping his palms over his stubble. God, he must look like crap. After running around LA 20 hours straight, the handful of hours spent napping on Lucifer's couch hardly made up for the deficit. He hadn't changed clothes since Sunday.

"Rise and shine, Joey, we have a killer to catch!" Lucifer bounced over to the bar and poured a drink.

"Isn't it a bit fucking early to drink?" Jounouchi demanded. In the warm light of day, Lucifer's home came off less like a cult's headquarters or a mob boss' den. It still looked hella expensive, but it also gave that eccentric vibe favored by LA's rich and frivolous. He wasn't sure anymore that this man could help.

"Yes, the downsides of having celestial metabolism. Need to drink early and often if I want to achieve a buzz by tonight. Help yourself to the guest bathroom that a way." Lucifer pointed to the far corner of the penthouse and wrinkled his nose in disapproval. "You'll find everything you need to freshen up. Consider a shower while you’re at it."

Shaking his head, Jounouchi stalked away. He relieved himself before hauling his sorry ass before the mirror. His eyes were bloodshot, he hadn't shaved in three days, and no amount of makeup in the world could cover up how utterly wrecked he felt.

Lucifer wasn't kidding when he said the bathroom was well-stocked. It was better stocked than most five-star hotels. Inside the vanity's drawers, Jounouchi found piles of brand new toothbrushes, men and women's razors, pads, tampons, lube, condoms, and dental dams. He gawked before remembering Lucifer Morningstar's dubious reputation.

He cast an envious look at the shower before deciding he was overdue. Under the cold spray, he squeezed his eyes shut, pushing away the nightmare that haunted him day and night since he walked into Kaiba's hotel suite. He couldn't fall apart yet. Not until he hunted down the sonuvabitch that killed Kaiba.

When he emerged from the bathroom, he found Lucifer standing by the bar nursing his who-knows-how-many-nth drink. Lucifer had thankfully dressed in an expensive, tailored suit he wore like a second skin. Armani: Jounouchi recognized the cut from Kaiba's own closet. Lucifer was tall, taller than Kaiba and Jounouchi. And his hair and eyes too dark, and his smirk far more lecherous than arrogant. Yet still... Jounouchi choked back the tears.

“Stop, I need a moment." Jounouchi held a hand up. He took several deep breaths even though it seemed futile. His lungs would never get enough air again.

Lucifer studied him with unabashed curiosity, tilting his head from side to side as he approached. "Oh, you didn't tell me you loved him. Do I really look that much like him?"

"No, not really." Jounouchi shook his head, refusing to acknowledge Lucifer's conclusion. No matter how long he'd lived abroad, Jounouchi remained Japanese at his core. Japanese men did not declare their love so openly or brazenly.

He had missed his chance to now.

Lucifer hummed and the leering grin returned. "Shame, I would be happy to help you through your time of grief."

Like last night, Jounouchi found himself trapped in the dark wells of Lucifer's eyes. He'd felt it then, something tugging at his mind, but his overwhelming need to avenge Kaiba had consumed him entirely. He relaxed against his will, slumping like a marionette with cut strings. Someone had hollowed the tight ball of rage out of him. No, he needed that. He jumped back and snatched his jacket draped over the sofa.

"I'm leaving. If you can't help me avenge Kaiba, you're no good to me," he declared and marched toward the elevator.

Jounouchi managed five steps before an inhuman, vice grip stopped him.

Lucifer laughed darkly. "There we go. I knew you were holding something back. You don't want justice. You want them to pay. You want to _punish_ the murderer. Yes yes, that's far more interesting. More honest."

Jounouchi couldn't. He couldn't shake Lucifer off, which should have scared him but he was too far gone to care about his own safety. "Are you going to help me or not?"

"With relish." Lucifer smiled, baring pearly white teeth set in the jaws of an apex predator.

Oddly enough, that put Jounouchi at ease once more.

-x-x-x-

Dan threw his hands up in defeat, dumping a stack of paper on the desk in disgust. "How does one man get _this_ many death threats?"

The case was burying them in paperwork, so much that they had commandeered an entire conference room to work. After verifying Mokuba’s alibi, she and Dan turned to other avenues of investigation. Without many friends or family in the area, Kaiba’s business associates were the next likely suspects.

Kaiba's San Francisco office had sent over two boxes of death threats addressed to the man himself or to the company. The boxes contained the tip of the iceberg: all the English-written correspondence collected over the last six months. The Japanese ones were supposedly double that. Thankfully, Ella offered to help sort through some of it while her tests ran through her lab equipment.

"Powerful men often make the most enemies," Chloe muttered.

"True, look at Lucifer," Dan snorted and he didn’t mask the bitterness in his words entirely.

She shot him a sharp glare.

He shrugged. "Just saying."

She sucked in a deep breath. Dan didn't even know the half of it. Everyone saw the Devil as their enemy: God, the church, and everyday people who blamed him for all _their_ own shortcomings. But Lucifer hadn't been her enemy. He had been—He was her friend, her partner, her...

She cut off that dangerous train of thought, lest it derailed the rest of her day. She couldn't afford that kind of distraction on a high-profile case like this. Maybe later. Maybe after they solved this one.

Instead, she forced her focus back to the file on hand: Joey Wheeler, aka Katsuya Jounouchi; 32-years-old; an actor with years of experience in the industry; hailed from Domino City, Japan where he had attended high school with Kaiba; lived in LA for the last seven years; a permanent resident of the US with a green card as of last year; and had fallen off-the-grid since Sunday.

Joey was widely known to be charismatic, boyishly handsome, and well-liked by those he worked with. He also wasn't taking calls or answering texts. The unis they sent to his Burbank address reported that nobody was home. The building's doorman and concierge couldn't remember seeing him over the past few days. And no one at his agency or his manager knew his whereabouts after he called in with a family emergency and vanished off the face of the earth.

The timing was too suspect but entirely circumstantial. Until they found actual evidence tying him to the crime, they wouldn't be able to dig deeper into his financials or phone records. Chloe couldn't shake the feeling they should talk to him though. Joey Wheeler may hold the key to the entire case.

"We should put out an APB on Joey just in case," she announced.

Dan stood and stretched, causing his back to crack. "I'll get on that. Could use a coffee and a break from all this crap." He gestured to the death threats littered across the table. "You want anything, Chlo?"

"No, I'm good."

Dan looked like he wanted to disagree but smartly kept his mouth shut. "Ella?"

"Oh oh, get me a bottled Frappuccino from the lab fridge! Vanilla please!"

"Don't you... Nevermind," Dan shook his head. "I'll be back."

Chloe pushed the file away and added "Joey Wheeler? Connection?" on the right side of the whiteboard. For now, she would focus on the victim unless the lead panned out somehow.

"Hey, Ella, you got anything on social media that can help on the timeline?"

The lab tech kicked, pushing her chair away from the table and spun around while keeping her tablet balanced on her lap. "I wish! For someone in tech, he's pretty social media-phobic. No Wobble, no Facebook, no Instagram, no Snapchat, and no Twitter. There are the official corporate ones, but he obviously doesn't maintain those. His brother, Mokuba, though is all over the place. But it confirms what we already knew. Mokuba's last Instagram posts were all geotagged in Japan and he's gone dark since this whole thing started. So I'd say his alibi's double confirmed."

Chloe fidgeted with the dry erase marker. "But Seto Kaiba was famous, right? Other people may have tagged him here in LA."

"I'll run some searches, but it'll take time. And speaking of social media, Lucifer just posted a new Instagram story!" Ella leaped to her feet and shoved the tablet in Chloe's face, causing her to stumble back several steps.

The post was a 15-second-long video taken while cruising along a familiar stretch of Santa Monica Blvd. The shot panned up from a view of the Corvette's console, where Lucifer's right hand and onyx ring gripped the steering wheel. "Lovely day for punishing bad guys, wouldn't you say?" Lucifer's tinny voice boomed over the tablet's speakers. He turned the camera to his right. There was someone in the passenger's seat next to him.

"Fucking hell, keep your freaking eyes on the road, man!" Another man shouted, alarmed and pissed, before snatching the phone from Lucifer's grip in a jostle of color and motion blur.

"Spoilsport," Lucifer drawled in response.

Chloe glimpsed blond hair before the video looped back to the start. She watched it a second time, wondering who would ride alongside Lucifer. In the two years since she'd known him, she had met pretty much all his casual and regular acquaintances. While Lucifer knew many people in LA, he always went to them or them to him. He rarely allowed anyone to tag along in his car unless it was her or Maze or anyone else in their immediate circle.

In their time apart, she had wondered if this last month affected him as much as it did her. And the answer appeared to be no. Lucifer was still so... Lucifer: talking about punishment and posting to social media while driving. Had he attached himself to another police detective for his fix of mischief?

Ella took one look at her face and meekly put down the tablet, even as the video looped in the background through Lucifer and his... whatever's banter. "Aw, Chloe," she threw her arms around Chloe's neck and pulled her close. "Don't worry. I'm sure Lucifer will come around soon. Once the whole Pierce thing gets sorted out, he'll swagger right back like no biggie."

A dull ache nestled in her chest. She sagged into the embrace, hoping against hope that Ella was right.

-x-x-x-

To Jounouchi's surprise, Lucifer asked questions like a cop. Okay, not all the time, sometimes. But more often than he expected. In between the shameless flirting and matter-of-fact tangents about the supernatural, he questioned means, motive, and opportunity. Were Lucifer prone to reading minds, Jounouchi might say he had another Pegasus at hand.

They settled at the bar again, with Jounouchi seated on one side and Lucifer behind it. Jounouchi turned down the offer of more alcohol but accepted a cup of coffee instead. He barely drank any of it, the liquid inside going from hot to lukewarm to cold as he recounted everything. Maybe Lucifer was the Devil because recounting the horrific scene that Jounouchi found in Kaiba's hotel room was like Hell itself. His only saving grace was that Lucifer never asked him to repeat himself. He seemed to take in all the details on the first pass.

"You didn't call the police. Why is that?" Lucifer asked with words clipped short.

Jounouchi pushed the cold cup away and buried his face in his hands. "I dunno. I wasn't thinking. I was so..."

Kaiba's bludgeoned face would haunt Jounouchi for the rest of his life. Seeing _that_ sent Jounouchi running headlong to a dark place he'd almost forgotten—to his not-life before meeting Yuugi, with gangs, poor life choices, scraped knuckles, and the "tender" mercies of his old man. Those were times when he couldn't trust anyone to look after him and his own.

"Kaiba would call me an idiot. Then he'd accuse me of having a hero complex." His voice remained low, muffled by his palms. "Or trust issues or something. Like the bastard was any better! He always acted like he could take care of anything on his own. And now look at him!"

Jounouchi lifted his head, curled his hands into fists, and slammed them down. The mug jumped, splashing coffee across the table. Lucifer frowned and straightened, removing his pressed sleeve cuffs from the coffee's encroaching path. He fetched a tea towel from under the bar and wiped up the liquid before it spilled onto the floor.

"Don't trust the police, I take it? You're not entirely misguided in the sentiment. The LAPD is a fairly corrupt, little organization. The last lieutenant in charge of homicide turned out to be an immortal crime boss. Well... formerly immortal." Lucifer smiled a shark's grin like he had a personal hand in the matter. But soon his gaze grew distant and soft around the edges. "But there are a few good people there who care about justice. Nauseating, isn't it?"

Jounouchi stared. Lucifer's mercurial moods gave him whiplash. "Speaking from experience, huh?"

"Hmm, yes. This is where I would normally call the detective, but I'm afraid we're not on speaking terms. So it’ll be you and me. It's for the better. This way we need not concern ourselves with human rule of law. Let's get back to our case. I need you to go further back. Tell me more about what he was doing prior."

"He wasn't supposed to come back to LA so soon," Jounouchi intoned bitterly. Maybe if Kaiba had remained in Japan, none of this would have happened. "He was here last month."

"To see you?"

"Not exactly. I mean, that’s part of it. But he's been in talks about a collaborative research agreement with a startup here, Reignr, for months now. It sounded like they've been giving him the runaround which he really didn't appreciate. It happens a lot with American companies. They think he'll be a pushover because he's Asian. But he really isn't."

"And he told you all that?"

"Not in so many words." Jounouchi shrugged helplessly. He never thought too deeply about all the things Kaiba shared with him. It was one thing when Jounouchi vented about work, leaks happened all the time in the entertainment industry. But the cutthroat corporate world that Kaiba inhabited was infinitely less forgiving. His mouth went dry. "He trusts—He trusted me. He had a phone call with the CTO on Saturday, even complained about it when we met up for dinner. They wanted access to the technology behind Solid Vision. Kaiba wasn't going to give it to them without some really good conditions first."

"There's a lot of money in this Solid Vision?"

"Yeah, lots lots." Jounouchi once saw the licensing fee for Solid Vision and nearly had a heart attack after seeing that many zeros in a row.

Lucifer adjusted his cufflinks before retrieving his suit jacket draped over the back of a bar-stool. "Hmm. We'll start there."

"You sure?"

"If I've learned anything from the Detective, it's that you humans all kill each other over the same reasons: love or money. Considering you're here asking for my help, I'd wager it's the second then." Lucifer slipped into his jacket and jangled as he patted down his pockets for his car keys.

Jounouchi didn't immediately rise to follow. Four times: that was how many times Lucifer had said "you humans" or something to that effect since Jounouchi started counting. He was no stranger to that kind of depersonalizing language. He had spent most of his formative teen years around ancient Egyptian artifacts that inspired bouts of megalomania in the people who held them.

"Let's go already!" Lucifer called impatiently with one arm holding the elevator doors open.

Jounouchi climbed to his feet. He may not know exactly what Lucifer was, but he had gambled his soul for less than avenging Kaiba’s death. Jounouchi didn’t regret trying to save Mai from the Orichalcos or painting a bullseye on himself in hopes of paying for his sister’s surgery. Just like he knew Kaiba never regretted doing the same for Mokuba. So making a pact with Lucifer, Devil or not, seemed par the course.

Out in the overbearing LA sun, Jounouchi slipped on his sunglasses and clung to the convertible's door for dear life. Lucifer drove like a maniac, weaving through traffic and leaving a carnage of road rage in their wake. They somehow didn't get pulled over. And if Jounouchi was tempted to toss Lucifer's cellphone out the car, it was for both their safety. They did, however, make it to Playa Vista in half the normal transit time.

A Reignr employee swiping in with an ID card let them into the building while fixing Lucifer with a smitten smile. Everything, from the walls painted in bright, primary colors to the standing desks jammed side-by-side, screamed tech startup. In his t-shirt and jeans, Jounouchi could pass as one of the software engineers stacked in rows and hunched over their keyboards with bulky noise-canceling headphones to block out the rest of the world. Lucifer couldn't be more out of place, but he seemed perfectly at ease as he flirted and cajoled their way onto the executive's floor and ultimately into the CTO's office.

Lucifer reached over the desk, plucked the headset off the CTO, and ended the call. "Hello, Timothy. Sorry for the interruption, but I'm afraid our questions can't wait," he smiled indulgently.

Jounouchi steeled himself. All he cared about now was the results.

-x-x-x-

Timothy Raleigh spun his chair, turning toward them with an enraged snarl fixed to his face. Like most of the overpaid techies swarming this stretch of beach between Venice and Playa del Ray, he was average-looking and probably had an inflated sense of self-worth. "Who the hell do you think you are?!"

Lucifer chuckled. These human turn of phrases never failed to amuse him. "How right you are. I'm Lucifer Morningstar."

Timothy's eyes flickered to some spot behind him, most likely where Jounouchi hung back in the background. Lucifer snapped his fingers, drawing attention back to himself.

"Get out of my office," spat the CTO.

Jounouchi stepped toward the desk, pushing his sunglasses into his golden hair and glaring. "We're not going anywhere until you answer my questions."

The insects-under-his-skin sensation he had been ignoring all morning returned tenfold. The scene was... off... His companion was the wrong gender and his hair the wrong shade of blond. Justice drove the detective while rage entirely consumed Jounouchi. This feeling was not unlike the one that haunted him with his last bedmate. He would also power through it now because if there was one thing the Devil didn't suffer, it was performance anxiety.

"I'm calling security," Timothy snarled as he reached for his phone again.

"Don't," Lucifer warned, catching the other man's gaze before softening his tone. "We needn't make this an unpleasant conversation."

He had applied a light touch of his charm, enough to disarm but not ensnare the other man. Timothy's resistance melted away, but he remained wary as he leaned back in his seat.

"Lovely." Lucifer took a step back and gestured to Jounouchi to proceed. It was his favor. His case. So he should get the first crack at their suspect. Lucifer tucked his hands into his trouser's pockets to prevent fiddling with his cuffs. The skin-crawling, skin-chaffing sensation hadn't gone away, but it had retreated into the background once more.

Jounouchi took the blunt approach in interrogation. It was nothing like the surgical precision the Detective favored. "Seto Kaiba. You had a meeting with him last Saturday."

"That's none of your business." Then after Timothy swept a long look up and down the length of Jounouchi's body, he sneered. "If this is Kaiba's idea of intimidation, he's gonna have to do better than a pretty boy and Sherlock Holmes there."

Jounouchi grabbed Timothy by his polo shirt collar and pulling him flush against the edge of the desk. "Don't think I won't beat your punk ass if I gotta," he growled. "You kept pushing Kaiba during negotiations, but he refused to cave. Was that why you killed him? You thought Mokuba or whoever took over next would be easier to convince."

"Wait, what? Kaiba's dead?" Timothy gaped.

Chest heaving and eyes flashing, Jounouchi drew a white-knuckled fist back. "Tell me what happened Sunday!"

"I swear I don't know! I didn't even know the asshole's dead! I didn't kill anyone! Yes, I had a call with Kaiba on Saturday, but I only got back into town this morning. I was in Seattle the whole time."

Grief really made humans act all funny. They wouldn't get any further information from Timothy if Jounouchi carried on like a bull in a china shop. Unfortunately, that left Lucifer playing the role of the restrained one. He much preferred his partners take that role, but this was a case of needs not wants. He pried Timothy from Jounouchi's grip and smoothed the man's wrinkled shirt with several light pats.

"May I?" he arched an eyebrow at Jounouchi in question.

Jounouchi squared his jaw with enough tension to brunch the muscles in his neck like a braided rope. Lucifer ached for a good massage at the sight of him. "Fine."

"Timothy," Lucifer commanded. The CTO's gaze snapped to him and Lucifer sunk his metaphysical claws deep into the man's psyche. Perfect. He held the man's eyes, satisfaction warming his belly like a good single-malt as he watched them glaze over. "I hear you've been giving Seto Kaiba quite the case of business blue balls. You must have wanted something dearly from him to lead him on for months. It's only proper to give a fellow a reach-around. So tell me, what did you desire so badly that a man is now dead?"

"I..." Timothy stuttered without resisting, his inhibitions torn down like tissue paper under Lucifer's thrall. "I want to be the biggest of them all."

Lucifer furrowed his brow and released his hold on Timothy. "Biggest what?"

"Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Seto fucking Kaiba." Timothy waved both hands emphatically in the air. His expression cleared, but his eyes remained feverishly bright. "I wanna be bigger than all of them combined. I wanna be _the_ tech entrepreneur of the millennium."

So Timothy Raleigh was driven by the insatiable lust for fame and notoriety: a relatively pedestrian desire in a city like Los Angeles. People in this town regularly killed for far less. The Detective’s regular caseload was more than evidence of that. "So that's why you got rid of the competition? Even the odds a bit?"

"No!" Timothy protested. "I told you I was in Seattle! Kaiba's no good to me dead. You can't defeat a dead man. There's no glory, no news story in it! Kaiba was wasting Solid Vision's potential keeping it confined to a niche market like Duel Monsters. Think of all the other applications. Entertainment. Education. Military!"

Jounouchi made a noise of disgust. "It's shit like that makes Kaiba so protective of his patent. He  would never, ever allow any military use Solid Vision."

Lucifer relinquished his position at the front-line of the interrogation. The intricacies of contemporary corporate backstabbing were little interest to him. He always found Hell loops featuring office drudgery some of the dullest. Jounouchi knew and understood Kaiba's business well enough to connect the dots. He wondered if that was because of the intimacy of their partnership. He wondered how long they had been together.

"He was an idiot," Timothy spat, raising from his seat. "Throwing all that money down the fucking toilet. He played hardball for months over contract negotiation. So I figured fine, let's keep stringing him along. As long as he kept biting, I would get a peek behind the curtain one way or another."

Realization dawned on Jounouchi's face. "You hired a corporate spy. You were going to steal Solid Vision for yourself, reverse engineer it somehow."

Timothy's silence was as good as an admission of guilt.

"It would have never worked," Jounouchi continued, tone growing frostier with each word that fell from his chapped lips. "You're not the first to try. Kaiba always ferrets out bastards like that."

Timothy deflated. "He said he’d gathered enough leverage on Kaiba. That was late Saturday night, around 1 AM."

"Have you heard from your man since?" Lucifer asked sharply.

Timothy shook his head.

"His name. We need his name."

Five minutes later, they exited the building with a name, a cell phone number, and some basic descriptors. They set a brisk pace back to where they’d left the Corvette parked in the garage. Lucifer pulled a cigarette from his case and lit up as he pondered their next steps. Finding one human in LA meant searching for the proverbial needle in the haystack which wasn't the Devil's wheelhouse. It was what the police were for. It was what Maze was for. Both of whom he was short of favors with nowadays.

"If he did it." Jounouchi's ragged breathing echoed off the concrete columns. "If he did it and it wasn't the plan, he'll have gone to ground. He'll hide. Or leave LA."

Lucifer studied his companion out of the corner of one eye, lips pursed around his cigarette. Jounouchi leaned heavily against the car as if he couldn't support his weight on his own. The sunglasses not only protected his eyes from the glare, but they also hid the dark panda rings around them. Lucifer recognized the symptoms of fatigue and burnout. He saw echoes of his Detective pushing too hard against her all too mortal limits with one too many all-nighters under her belt. Jounouchi wasn't his partner. He certainly wasn't Lucifer's friend. But Lucifer had practice in the "caring" of stubborn humans, so he might as well put it to good use.

He pulled his phone out, scrolling through the long list of contacts. "Right, I will call in a few favors and see if we can't locate our murderous spy. Then we're having lunch. I'm famished, even if you aren't."

Jounouchi nodded, oozing into the passenger seat without complaint. It was a testament to his exhaustion.


	2. Chapter 2

Chloe and Dan were ten feet from the police cruiser when Ella's texts hit their phones in rapid fire.

> _GUYS!_
> 
> _LAB!_
> 
> _NOW!_

They traded wary looks and about-faced, marching back into the precinct. They pushed through the closed door into Ella’s lab without knocking first. Evidence for the case was spread across her table in the center of the room, including the murder weapon still wrapped in its evidence bag.

As soon as the door fell closed behind them, Ella crossed the room in five steps and threw her hands up in the air in celebration. "It's not him!" She beamed.

"What?" Dan asked, bafflement clear on his face.

Ella practically vibrated. "Our dead dude! It's not Seto Kaiba!"

"What? Are you sure?" Chloe's arms dropped to her side, numbed by the sudden turn of news.

Ella pressed a button on her remote and two sets of fingerprints popped up on the large monitor. "I'm positive! Our vic's fingerprints don't match the ones that Mokuba gave us. Same thing with the dental records. I wanted to run DNA to triple-check, but that's the one thing Mokuba and the company wouldn't release. Thanks for getting those records, Decker."

Dan rubbed his face with one hand while his other rested on his hip. "Great, we're back to square one."

"Not exactly," Ella singsonged. "Get this. When we originally ran the vic's fingerprints, nothing turned up in AFIS, right? But AFIS isn't the only database out there. So I reached out to some peeps and got access to a few other ones. Guys, I got a hit! I know who our victim really is!"

"Great job, Ella," Chloe smiled softly. It was still a bitter pill to swallow. She might get to tell Mokuba Kaiba that his brother wasn't dead, but someone's family member had still been murdered in cold blood.

Ella thrust a new file at her, flipped open to showcase the glossy photo at the top of the pile. "Boom! Meet Matthew Yamashiro, formerly of the US Army, which is how I found him in the army database. No previous criminal record or arrests. He did three tours in Afghanistan between 2002 and 2009. He's been working as a private security contractor since then."

From a physicality standpoint, Matthew Yamashiro shared a lot in common with Seto Kaiba. They were roughly the same height and weight, blue-eyed, brown-haired, and fair-skinned. They weren’t doppelgangers, but Matthew could pass as Seto Kaiba from a distance and in the right clothes. Their victim's battered face had fudged the identification process until now.

New theories and questions coalesced. What if the state of the body had been on purpose? This had all the hallmarks of a faked death, but it seemed so sloppy. If Kaiba himself didn't arrange this, then where was he? While neither the LAPD nor Kaiba's company had yet to make any official announcements, rumors had already spread across the internet like wildfire. Someone(s) from the hotel staff had talked to an online gossip rag, and Kaiba Corporation's stock price plummeted. Their worst case scenario was that Seto Kaiba was still dead, and no one had discovered his actual body yet.

Evidence. She needed to follow the evidence.

She passed the file to Dan. "His work address is local. We should head there first. Thanks, Ella, let us know if you find anything else."

"Sure thing!" she chirped and danced across the room to her microscope.

Before heading back to the cruiser, they dropped by the lieutenant's office to deliver the news. He sagged back in his chair with relief that Chloe deemed premature. They still didn’t know what happened to the actual Seto Kaiba. But the lieutenant waved them off so he could report to his higher-ups and the Japanese embassy. She was grateful to not deal with the politics of the situation.

She took up a position behind the steering wheel while Dan slid into the passenger's seat. As she weaved through the midday LA traffic, Dan called ahead to Matthew's office and they spent the rest of the trip reviewing the file.

Matthew Yamashiro's private security firm was located in the Valley, which she guessed was a conscious choice to avoid some of the more exorbitant rent rates closer to downtown LA. It was one of five business housed in an office park with ample parking and the boxy corporate architecture favored in the 1980s. Moutainhold Securities' office was painfully modern by comparison, all sleek lines and polished metal surfaces.

The receptionist, a pretty redhead in her late twenties, rose from behind the front desk to greet them. "Good afternoon, I'm afraid Mister Yamashiro’s not here today. I can take a message down for him if you like."

She flashed her badge while Dan leaned against the desk and said, "We're with the LAPD, Detectives Espinoza and Decker. We called on the phone a little ago."

"Sure, detectives. I'm not sure what I can do without my boss around." The receptionist chewed her lower lip.

Chloe peered down a hallway to their right. "Perhaps we can talk somewhere more private?"

The receptionist, named Daisy Mallory, burst into tears when Chloe broke the news of Matthew Yamashiro’s death. Daisy let out a wailing sob before collapsing onto a chair in what appeared to be the office’s break room. There was an honest-to-god espresso machine on the counter, from which she had previously tried to offer them cappuccinos minutes ago. Dan passed a nearby box of tissues to Daisy, who plucked them by the fistful and buried her face in them.

Eventually, her sobs subsided into hiccups and she looked up with eyes rimmed in red and runny mascara. "Are you sure?"

"Unfortunately, we are. When did you last see your boss?" Chloe asked gently.

Daisy sniffled. "Last Friday. He told me he was working with a client over the weekend and wasn't coming into the office on Monday. When he didn't come in today either, I assumed that the contract had run long."

"So that's why you didn't report anything to the police."

She nodded vigorously. "It happens from time to time, and he doesn't always tell me when he gets busy. I just hold down the fort until he comes back."

"Are there any other employees besides you?"

"Nope, Matthew handles everything. Sometimes, when he needs the extra help, he'll reach out to his old army buddies."

Daisy offered them little insight into Matthew's client work. So when Chloe asked if they could look around the office and Daisy agreed without hesitation, she breathed a sigh of relief. If Daisy said no, they'd have to go back and seek another warrant.

She left Daisy with Dan to finish the interview. As she exited, she overheard the receptionist ask meekly, "Does this mean I'm out of a job?"

The door to Matthew's office was unlocked, and the interior was as minimalist and sleek as everything else. A row of black filing cabinets lined one wall. She found every drawer locked. If Lucifer were here, they wouldn't be an obstacle.

She swallowed. One day, she'd ask him how he did it beyond his claims that no lock could hold the Devil.

She booted up the laptop on the desk and found it similarly locked behind a login. To Chloe's relief, she discovered an old-fashioned planner book next to the computer. Inside, Matthew kept track of all his meetings and appointments in sharp, angular lettering. She flipped to this past Saturday where Matthew had recorded an early afternoon meeting: _Follow-up with S.K._

Dan poked his head into the office. "You find anything?"

She waved her hand, beckoning him to come in for a closer look.

"Hmm, S.K. Obvious who that is." He then flipped through the rest of the schedule.

She gestured to the rest of the room. "Everything's locked up tight. We'll need a search warrant."

"Speaking of warrants, the one on Matthew Yamashiro's apartment came through. The precinct's sending someone to meet us with the papers there."

Chloe snapped a photo of the appointment on her phone. As she pocketed her phone, something growled. She glanced at Dan's stomach before moving onto his sheepish face.

"Sorry, never had lunch."

She sighed and threaded an arm through his. Sometimes she felt like the only adult around. "C'mon, I got a sandwich in the car," she said in her best "Mom" voice.

Dan knocked his shoulder against hers. "Can we get drive-through instead?"

Chloe swatted his arm in response and he laughed. Dan wasn't her partner, but it was nice not to be alone anymore.

-x-x-x-

"Ah, Doctor!" He greeted with an exuberant smile, even if she couldn't see it.

"Lucifer, how can I help you?" Linda asked. The sound of cutlery against plastic rang from her end of the line.

"Eating lunch by ourselves in the office again?"

It was almost two o'clock. Linda needed to take better care of herself.

She sighed. It was a familiar and exasperated sound, and it shouldn't calm him the way it did. "Yes, Lucifer."

"I won't take too much of your time then. I can't make this afternoon's session."

"What? Why is that?"

Lucifer could hear her frowning over the phone. He shifted on the picnic bench, trying to find a more comfortable position, but his bloody legs were too long. "I'm indisposed with a case at the moment, so can we reschedule for next week?"

"Wait, a case? Are you working with Chloe again?" Linda's questions rushed out in one breathless, excited gust. "Maybe we should reschedule for sometime sooner. I have time tomorrow morning."

"No, no, not with the Detective. I found my own case. Or rather, I should say _it_  found me."

Lucifer flashed a grin at Jounouchi on the approach with both their lunch orders from the food truck. Jounouchi deposited an order in front of Lucifer before sinking down on the opposite bench. He stared at his own food, blinked four times, and then pushed it aside. Lucifer frowned and opened his mouth to scold the human when Linda cut in.

"Lucifer, please tell me you're not running around investigating homicides on your own."

"Well, I’m not alone, Linda.” he said with a cheeky grin even though she couldn’t see it. “I'll see you next week."

"Lu—"

He ended the call without further goodbye. He'd earned a temporary reprieve from her questioning. No doubt she would bring them up in their next session. But that was a problem for next week's Lucifer. Today's Lucifer's only concern was finding and punishing a murderer.

"You should eat," Lucifer said as he picked up his burger. "You're no use to anyone if you're dead on your feet."

"Was that one of your contacts?" Jounouchi asked.

Lucifer chewed several times and swallowed his bite before answering, "Nope. Therapist."

Jounouchi's jaw dropped. "Wait, did you say therapist?"

He rolled his eyes. Humans got caught off-guard by the most mundane things. "Did I stutter? Yes, therapist."

"The Devil has a therapist," Jounouchi repeated, chewing each word more thoroughly than his lunch. Because he wasn't eating any of it! What a waste! "Yeah sure, why not? If Bakura's a shrink, then Satan himself can be in therapy. This is fucking LA. Everyone's in therapy."

"Are you?"

Jounouchi shook his head.

"I can give you Doctor Linda's number. She's quite good. It might help if you talk about your loss. Or so I'm told."

Jounouchi might need it. Most people's first instinct upon learning their lover's death was not to seek a favor from the Devil to seek revenge. Lucifer wasn't one to complain. He was getting some much-needed distraction out of the arrangement, but it seemed a tad "unhealthy coping mechanism" on the human's part. Maybe he'd ask Linda during their next session.

Without acknowledging the offer, Jounouchi pulled his lunch close and picked at it, signaling the subject done. Lucifer went through the rest of his meal at a leisurely pace. They had no other leads to follow until they found this Maxwell Powers—now that was a Hell-bound, super-villain name if there ever was one. He could offer a deal to some officer in Homicide, get them to run prints or plates or whatever the boring paperwork part of the job was. But there was no guarantee it wouldn't get back to the Detective somehow. And knowing his own Dad-damned luck, it would.

They ate in silence for about twenty minutes. Lucifer demolished the rest of his meal while Jounouchi ate barely a quarter of his. Lucifer spent the rest of the time thumbing through his social media. Maybe after they finished, they could take a photo to commemorate the case. Surely that'd be worth a few hundred likes.

Jounouchi fidgeted, apparently not at ease with the lull in the conversation. "So you're surprisingly familiar with police work."

"I consult." Then he caught himself with a grimace. "Consulted with the LAPD. Helped solve dozens of murder cases." He wanted to preen, but it was so bloody difficult when it was about something now out of reach.

"So when you say 'the detective', you mean a real one? Like your handler?"

"My partner," he snapped, unable to tamper down the hurt in his voice. "She was my partner."

"Oh," Jounouchi breathed with wide eyes and slack jaws, drawing entirely the wrong conclusion. "I'm sorry to hear that."

"She's fine! She's alive!" Lucifer insisted. "But like I told you earlier, we're not speaking."

"Is she, ya know, supernatural like you?"

"What? No. She's..."

A miracle. Heaven-sent.

"Human," Lucifer concluded.

Jounouchi dropped the curly fry he'd been toying with and cast a skeptical look across the table. "Human and magic aren't mutually exclusive."

That gave Lucifer pause. Humans so readily dismissed his claims about the supernatural, especially without being shown concrete proof. When Jounouchi hadn't been alarmed, Lucifer chalked it up to him not having a Christian upbringing. Humans reared outside of the Judeo-Christian faiths didn't associate the same baggage with him. But whatever Jounouchi may think of who or what Lucifer is, he accepted Lucifer's powers and their inhuman origin at face value.

Lucifer dialed up his charm, watching with satisfaction as he snagged the other man's attention like a magnet drawn north. "Really? It sounds like you speak from firsthand experience. Why don't you tell me all about it?"

Jounouchi's expression slackened, but his eyes didn't glaze over in that way most humans under his influence did. He couldn't fight Lucifer's ability. Thank Dad for that, Lucifer wouldn't know what to do if he stumbled across another human immune to him. No, but Jounouchi seemed... aware that something was being coaxed out of him.

"I've met them before," Jounouchi choked out. "Things claiming to be gods."

Lucifer steered clear of most other immortal beings, divine or otherwise. They were rarely worth the trouble. When his wings were stolen, he briefly suspected Izanami, who had a nasty habit of hoarding mystical artifacts like a nuclear stockpile. She didn't have them, but Lucifer had been all too aware of the emissary she'd sent to the auction to acquire said wings. It had been another reason on a long list to burn the damned things.

He pushed harder. "Now I must know. I know you want to tell me. I would believe you too. Was it Izanami?"

A distressed sound escaped Jounouchi's lips before he spoke again, "No, I've met Ra, Osiris, and Horakhty."

Huh, definitely not what he expected. He wasn’t aware that those three or the rest of their pantheon bothered with the mortal plane anymore. Their last true believers had died off eons ago, and people rarely invoked their names outside of Neo-Pagan gibberish. But Jounouchi wasn’t lying. Lucifer’s powers ensured that he dragged nothing but the unfiltered truth to light.

"And there was also Leviathan." Jounouchi scrunched his face as if to fend off an unpleasant memory.

Lucifer demanded, "Leviathan? Of the Orichalcos? Where did you meet it?"

Jounouchi's expression had cleared. He was so surprised that the last of his resistance had crumbled. Lucifer thought it wise to release the other man now. "Wait, you know about the Orichalchos?"

Of course, Lucifer knew Leviathan and the Orichalchos. Not personally, but he'd had his good name tarnished by the likes of the Serpent since the dawn of human history. Leviathan was more primordial and far nastier than the run-of-the-mill immortal. It was also the antithesis of everything Lucifer stood for. Leviathan corrupted, twisted, and tapped into human greed to feed its own never-ending appetite for souls. He had been in Hell when it was sealed, unleashing a tsunami of mangled and guilt-ridden souls into Lucifer's infernal kingdom. That mess alone took him several centuries to sort through.

"When? Where?" Lucifer repeated his demand through gritted teeth. How was it possible that Leviathan was active again without him noticing or without it drawing his siblings and Father's attention?

Jounouchi held up both hands, spreading his fingers wide in surrender. His eyes remained wild. "Chill. We dealt with it. That was like 15 years ago."

Now there was a story. Lucifer couldn't imagine a scenario where any group of humans, extraordinary or otherwise, could "deal" with the Serpent. But before he could dig deeper into the matter, his phone rang. The caller ID heralded "Walter." He jabbed the answer button and snapped the phone to his ear.

Across the table, Jounouchi dropped his head in his folded arms. He muttering something under his breath, which Lucifer's superhuman hearing picked up and identified as a long litany of colorful swearing in Japanese.

"Word is that you're looking for Maxwell Powers." Walter's smoke-damaged voice brought Lucifer back to the call.

"Indeed."

Walter fell silent on the other end. He fancied himself an information broker and violating his clients’ confidence could be disastrous for his business. Yet Lucifer wagered Walter would rather clear his debt with the Devil first.

Walter caved as predicted. "Fine. He called me earlier. Wanted to get a limited dossier on Matthew Yamashiro."

"Any information in specific?"

"The basics and then a rundown of all the real estate under his name or his firm's name."

"Lovely. You'll send me the same?"

"If I do, we're even?"

"I’m a Devil of my word."

"Done."

Lucifer pulled his phone away and glared at it. "Rude."

The screen lit up with a new notification. Walter had emailed him the information requested. Well, at least he was expedient.

"We have a new lead." He nudged Jounouchi under the table with one foot.

Jounouchi lifted his head, a furious glare fixed on his face. "Don't fucking do that again," he snarled.

"Do what?"

"Your powers!" he shouted, drawing the stares of nearby pedestrians. "Or whatever you did before."

Lucifer stood, stepped away from the picnic table, and smoothed the lines of his suit. He gathered their trash and tossed it in the nearby garbage can. He turned back to find Jounouchi still seated and still glaring.

"No promises. Especially if it's useful. Are you coming or not?"

Slowly, Jounouchi rose to his feet. On the way back to the car, he was careful to maintain at least three feet of distance between them. Lucifer ignored the sharp jab in his side. The detective wasn't around. He was fine. Nothing earthbound could hurt him.

For a while, the radio staved off the worst of the silence. But Jounouchi refused to look in Lucifer's direction or speak to him. If this continued, it would have a detrimental effect on the case. It was strange too. Some humans were disturbed or wary after he applied his charm, but very rarely this furious.

Lucifer hazarded a guess. "You're genuinely upset."

Jounouchi swiveled to glare, caught himself, and fixed his attention on the road ahead. "Yeah, imagine that: I'm not okay with people or whatever mind controlling me."

It was Lucifer's turn to be offended. "Mind control! I did no such thing! You didn't tell me anything you didn't already want to. No matter what you tell yourself, you wanted someone to believe you and not call you crazy. And I do believe you've met the lot of them: Ra, Osiris, even bloody Leviathan. Deep down, you also know that or you would have left already."

Jounouchi dropped his eyes to his lap, twisting his shirt hem between his fingers. "I... I..." He inhaled and released a body-shuddering breath. "I thought maybe if the supernatural was involved, then Kaiba wouldn't actually be dead. If you believed me and could tell me that there was something else at play, maybe I could get him back."

"That's not how this works," Lucifer scoffed.

"Well, you don't know our history!" Jounouchi snapped. "A lot of non-human things have tried to kill us over the years, but it's the human ones that've come the closest."

"Yes, well, I hadn't meant to cause any undue distress with my questions. You were unusually alert. Most humans are eased into it by my... Well, magnetic personality."

"So you put me under the knife without the anesthesia?"

Lucifer snorted. "Yes, I suppose that's an apt analogy. It sounds like you have guesses on why that is."

"I've been mind-controlled before. I was sixteen when someone used a magical artifact to force me to kill my best friend. I... He helped me to break the control before it was too late. Once I did that, it stopped working on me."

"It made you aware, or at least, sensitive to mental tampering. What is this artifact called?" Lucifer didn't relish cleaning up another of his family's messes, but if this artifact was that powerful and dangerous, it was better removed from human hands.

"The Millennium Rod. You don't have to worry about it. It and the rest of the Items are all locked away."

Lucifer burst into giggles. The car drifted into the next lane before he course-corrected. "Millennium Rod, really? I can assure you I don't have such a ridiculously named thing." He pressed his tongue against the inside of his cheek and quipped. "Although there is another rod I can show you if you're inclined."

"You're like a five-year-old," Jounouchi shook his head in wonder. But at least he was now willing to make eye contact with Lucifer.

"Rod, Joey, rod," he repeated with glee.

-x-x-x-

"Yeah, okay, thanks," Dan said, nodding before hanging up.

Chloe glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. Dan had drawn his entire body taut like a bowstring, and his nostrils flared like a charging bull.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

He took a shuddering breath. "We got a hit on that APB for Joey Wheeler. An exec from Reignr called in and reported two men trespassing in his office and intimidating him. One of them matched Joey's description. The other flat-out introduced himself. You'll never guess who he was."

She gripped her steering wheel tighter. "No."

Dan's rage gave it all away before he even spoke. "Yeah, Lucifer. What the hell is he up to?"

Chloe swallowed the hysterical laughter bubbling in her throat. What the hell indeed. Just when she thought she had a handle on things, these moments bowled her over with the reminder that Heaven and Hell were far from metaphorical. She beat back the existential crisis. She was getting better at it lately. She wasn’t even breaking sweat anymore.

"I swear to God I’ll shoot him myself if he gets in the way."

"Dan, don't," she warned.

For one, Chloe wasn't sure that would work. Except it did sometimes, didn't it? Despite his many claims to immortality, Lucifer did bleed. She wouldn't have her necklace if he didn't. But even after everything with Pierce, she didn't really understand more than she used to. There was so much she didn't know because she never asked. There was so much she wanted to ask.

"No, Chloe, listen. This is what Lucifer Morningstar does. He aids and abets the criminal element. Jeopardizes our cases with his recklessness. He knew Pierce was the Sinnerman for months and said nothing. I’m not surprised if he's helping our murderer right now. You're— We're all better off without him," roared Dan.

For several moments, Chloe couldn't bring herself to respond. Her mouth flapped open and shut several times, torn between concentrating on the road and assembling a counterargument. Yes, Dan was still grieving Charlotte. Every day without her must feel like a knife through the heart. But it was times like this that reminded her why their marriage fell apart. Dan was always so convinced of his righteousness even when he was wrong. Even when he did things for all the wrong reasons, like Palmetto.

Especially Palmetto.

She seethed. "You can't lay all the blame on him. Pierce killed Charlotte. Not Lucifer. Pierce hoodwinked all of us."

"Lucifer should have told us. He should have stopped Pierce."

Her temples throbbed. This was an argument long left simmering. It had only been a matter of time before the mess boiled over. She might have been better prepared if it didn't happen right in the middle of a case, especially her first case back without her partner.

"Then what does that say about me? I was about to marry a corrupt cop for the second time." Her calm tone belied the emotional storm roiling under her skin.

Her accusations sucked all the air from the car. She couldn’t bring herself to regret her words though. Not even after seeing the heart-wrenching regret flash across Dan’s face.

"Chloe..." Dan said brokenly. "I didn't mean it like that."

"Didn't you? Didn't you just devalue everything I worked my ass for over the two years? I clawed my way back up after Palmetto. After Malcolm."

He winced at the mere mention of Malcolm.

She didn’t care and plowed straight ahead. Grief only excused so much jackass behavior. “I have the best closing rate in the entire department. I get justice for my victims. So don’t presume to tell me what’s best for me, Dan.”

He averted his gaze but couldn't resist one final jab. "You're always going to take his side, aren't you?"

She didn't dignify him with a response. The silence stretched to its limit for the rest of the ride. Were they not on a case and she was down one partner, she would have pulled over and ejected him from her car.

As promised, a patrol car waited for them when they reached Matthew Yamashiro's apartment building and passed over the search warrant. A property manager let them into the building and pressed another key into Chloe's hand before rushing off on another errand.

Their apartment of interest stood near one end of the fifth-floor hallway. Little noise seeped into the hall, save for the quiet murmur of a TV from one apartment. Given it was mid-afternoon on a weekday, most people were at work. But as they drew closer to the apartment, Chloe picked up on what sounded like a heated conversation behind the door. Someone shouted, the words muddled but a threat crystal clear in the tone. The threat then solidified in the form of a gunshot.

She unholstered her gun and plastered flat against one side of the door while Dan took up a position on the other side.

"LAPD!" she cried. "Put down your weapon and surrender yourself!"

Another shot rang inside the apartment. It had been fired away from the front door.

Her eyes met Dan's, and he nodded in acknowledgment. Without bothering with the key, she slammed her booted foot into the doorjamb and kicked the door in one fluid kick. Inside the apartment, two men fought and wrestled with each other. A Glock pistol, the source of the previous gunshots, shuffled under their feet.

"LAPD!" repeated Dan. "Hands up!"

One man cast a panicked look about, landed a right hook on the other man, and dove straight through the open window onto a fire escape. Dan scrambled after him in pursuit, issuing more warnings every step of the way.

Chloe moved to secure the man left behind, keeping her weapon trained on him until she could assess whether or not he was a threat. She kicked the Glock away and ordered, "Hands in the air."

He complied gingerly. He wore a short-sleeved, button-down shirt in white tucked into a pair of skinny jeans. Other than the formal wingtip shoes, he'd blend in fine with the regular LA crowds. As he raised his hands as instructed, a rectangular pendant slipped out through the v framed by the top two undone buttons around his collar. Sheesh, he was tall, almost as tall as Lucifer. Then she looked into his steel-blue eyes and recognition slammed into her like a bus.

She gasped, "You."

-x-x-x-

Jounouchi continued to serve as a fascinating study in human grief: all fire and fury in one instant then doused into soul-sucking sorrow in the next. For a while now, he'd settled in the sad end of the spectrum as he sank deep into the passenger's seat and watched the streets fly by with vacant eyes. The phone in his lap buzzed, and the screen jumped to life. With practiced and robotic ease, he dismissed a call from "Mokuba Kaiba" for the fourth time since they left Lux.

Seconds later, the phone lit up with another voicemail notification. He made no move to check it. He made no attempt at engage with the rest of the world, Lucifer included.

Lucifer drummed his fingers along the steering wheel and threw the car into park. He double-checked the address in Walter's intel: Matthew Yamashiro's home address. The address placed the apartment on a street straddling Echo Park and Silver Lake. There was also a work address in the Valley, but it was further out and Lucifer preferred to wait until after normal work hours before tackling it.

"We're here."

Jounouchi nodded in acknowledgment. He shoved his phone, bursting to the metaphoric seams with missed calls and unread texts, deep into his pocket before climbing out of the car. Lucifer jogged up to the apartment building's front door and rested one hand on the knob. Under his fingers, the lock's pin tumblers aligned themselves. He twisted and pushed the door open without a key.

"After you." He arched an eyebrow in invitation.

To Lucifer’s disappointment, Jounouchi fails to acknowledge his display of skills. Nor does he admonish him for breaking and entering against the law. Lucifer slipped into the building behind the other man, then wrinkled his nose when he saw there was no elevator. It was a long climb to Matthew's fifth story apartment.

Jounouchi charged up the stairs, overtaking him in a handful of steps.

They were close. They both sensed it.

"Any thoughts on what you'll do once we catch this miscreant?" Lucifer mused aloud.

Jounouchi paused at the next landing. He spun on his heel to face Lucifer. His sneaker soles squeaked across the linoleum, and the sound echoed through the stairwell like an alarm. "I... I'll..."

Lucifer stopped one step short of the landing where their height difference evened out. Keeping Jounouchi’s earlier reaction in mind, he decided to forego his charm. Not that he needed to, Jounouchi was the surprisingly forthright type. Lucifer slipped both hands into his pockets and watched the other man’s face twist through an array of emotions, of which he readily recognized only two: despair and confusion.

For all the bloodthirstiness Jounouchi projected at the start of their misadventure, he didn't seem the eye-for-an-eye type. Hotheaded, yes. But vindictive? Would he really kill his lover's murderer? Then he recalled Daniel's fraying control after Charlotte’s death and Cain's dangerous obsession with the Detective when he fancied himself a lovesick fool. Perhaps it was as he once said: love made humans stupid.

"I imagine you want to hurt him." Lucifer rolled his neck in an effort to ease the sudden tension straining his shoulders. "Far be it for me to object to a little torture. But I should warn you that your choices have consequences."

Heaven. Hell. That choice was always in the hands of the individual.

"And if I wanted to end him?" Jounouchi asked, speaking barely above a whisper.

Lucifer didn’t understand why his heartbeat sped up. Then he remembered a bullet flattened against a kevlar vest, a sunlit helipad, and a choice made at its precipice. There were actions in the world that couldn't be taken back.

A loud, prolonged bang from several floors above saved Lucifer from having to answer Jounouchi. It was a sound Lucifer had become intimately familiar with over the last two years: gunfire. He sprinted forward, taking two steps at a time. Jounouchi fell into step behind him, heavy footfall and cursing in accompaniment. A second shot rang, spurring them to move faster.

The front door to Matthew Yamashiro’s apartment was ajar. The doorframe splintered as if someone had kicked it in.

Lucifer pushed past the other man, ensuring he was the first to enter. Out of the two of them, he was the bulletproof one. Or he would have been if not for the one person he least expected to see ever again.

"Detective?"

Chloe, who already had her service weapon drawn, spun on her heels and raised it as a reflex. Oh, the irony if she shot him then and there. Her eyes widened, surprised but not afraid. She quickly re-holstered her weapon. "Lucifer?"

A growl was his only warning before Jounouchi barreled into the apartment as well. "Where is he? Is Maxwell Powers here or not?"

Unable to tear his eyes off the detective, he gestured at her and made introductions. "It would appear we’re a step behind. Joey, this is Detective Decker. Detective, Joey Wheeler."

Hurt flitted across her features. “You are working with Joey Wheeler.”

"Jounouchi?" Another male voice, clipped and commanding, barged into the conversation.

Lucifer glanced to the tall man behind her. The man slowly lowered his arms from the air, then walked toward them despite Chloe's warning look. Well, he headed straight toward Jounouchi. Oh oh! Now, this was a surprise! Seto Kaiba, alive and well, and definitely not as a bludgeoned corpse as Jounouchi had described.

Jounouchi stepped around Lucifer, rushing to meet his not-so-dead lover halfway. He reached for Kaiba but stopped short of touching him. "Kaiba? Is that you? You're okay?"

The fear and longing winding through Jounouchi's words pressed into Lucifer's chest with an uncomfortable weight. Despite his best efforts, his attention drifted slowly and surely back to Chloe.

Kaiba nodded sharply. The gesture was like firing the starting pistol at the races or a matador swinging his cape. The agony painted across Jounouchi's face melted into hurt. Jounouchi surged forward, closing the last of the distance between them. His hands grabbed the lapels of Kaiba's shirt, fabric bunching and pulling until the shirt tails came untucked. Kaiba leaned forward in a reflex to accommodate their slight height difference until the two men stood nose to nose.

Chloe took two brisk steps forward with one hand on her holstered gun and another stretched out in front of her. She seemed suspicious that another fight she'd need to break up might occur. Well, maybe. Just not the kind she probably expected. She jumped back in surprise when he moved to her side.

He shook his head. "Leave them be.”

"What?" Her eyes darted between him and the other two men. "Why?"

It took several moments and the growing confusion on Chloe's face before he realized that the men's conversation had slipped into Japanese. Their words were quick and harsh. Before long, Jounouchi hurled an accusation that Kaiba had faked his own death to which Kaiba vehemently denied and called his lover an idiot in return. Well, if that wasn't interesting that Jounouchi would leap to that as his first conclusion.

"Don't worry," Lucifer assured her. "They're simply talking things out."

She clearly didn't believe him. "No, it looks like your _friend_  is about to punch my next lead," she growled.

He whirled around in time to catch Jounouchi yanking Kaiba down into a biting kiss. Mmm, lovely. They made a pretty picture together. "You were saying, Detective?"

Chloe stammered, mouth flapping open and close. She should look ridiculous like that, but Lucifer found it only endearing. Here he was, inches away from a pair of handsome men wrapped in a passionate embrace, and all he wanted to do was take in the lovely blush creeping up her neck and cheeks.

"Hey, Chlo, I lost the guy— Jesus, what is happening in here?!" An unwelcome fifth-wheel screeched in the front doorway.

Lucifer sighed and glared at Dan, now also gaping at the reunited couple like a landed fish. "Atrocious timing as ever, Daniel."

Dan squirmed and quickly averted his eyes to the floor. "Guess we know how they know each other," he muttered.

"Oh, if mean biblically? Yes, I believe they do." Lucifer couldn't resist one last leer in his direction.

Dan looked ready to wiggle out of his skin entirely. Ugh, heteronormativity.

"Lucifer," she snapped, words sharp with a reprimand.

His chest ached again. It almost felt like old times.

Meanwhile, Jounouchi and Kaiba drew back far enough to press their foreheads together, sharing the same shaky breaths. The words exchanged between them had softened, laced with regret. Then Kaiba nudged his nose across Jounouchi's cheek and said, "I'm sorry." Jounouchi clung to him harder, eyes wet and bright.

Now Lucifer fidgeted, alarmed by the return of insects-crawling-under-his-skin. He adjusted his signet ring and contemplated his flask. The temptation to flee the room had nothing to do with the low hum of arousal of watching them kiss. No, that had been doused so quickly he got whiplash. He'd much prefer almost anything else to the heartbreak scarring over before his eyes. He understood voyeurism as a kink, but this display of human emotions should nauseate or at least embarrass everyone.

"Excuse me," Chloe butted in, sharp and professional as always. "Please step away from each other, gentlemen. I have questions for you each about an active murder investigation. It's best if you both cooperate."

Lucifer shot her a grateful look she ignored. It stung like getting shot when she wasn't around.

Jounouchi stepped back, tracing a hand down the length of Kaiba's arm. "Yeah, sorry about that, detective." He watched Chloe with curious eyes, occasionally glancing over to Lucifer, having put two and two together.

"Are you going to arrest us?" Kaiba asked evenly despite the suspicion in his narrowed eyes.

"Not unless you give me a reason to." She watched them both warily.

"That shouldn't be necessary, Detective," said Lucifer.

Kaiba met his eyes for the first time, and Lucifer returned the stare curiously. He suspected Kaiba was one of the "complicated ones." He didn't get the chance to test his theory when Kaiba broke eye contact as a preemptive defense mechanism. Kaiba's body assumed a familiar "fuck off" stance that could make Maze proud. Nor did Lucifer miss the half-step he took to place himself in front of Jounouchi. For whatever reason, Kaiba regarded Lucifer as a threat.

"And you are?" Kaiba spoke as someone accustomed to the vestments of power did. He swept his gaze up and down Lucifer, eyes flashing with a quicksilver intelligence piecing together conclusion after conclusion. "You're not police."

Lucifer clapped his hands and turned away. He grinned at Chloe. "I think a round of drinks and introductions are in order. Wouldn't you agree, darling?"

-x-x-x-

Much to Chloe's annoyance, they ended up at Lucifer's penthouse.

She was the last to step off the elevator into Lucifer's living room. Everything looked more or less the same as the last time she visited weeks ago. The baby grand occupied its usual place of honor in the middle of the open layout. His library to her left remained intact with shelves full to the brim. Lucifer's private bar was stocked to its usual standard, so Chloe had no idea if he'd been drinking more or less since you-know-what happened.

Neutral territory her ass.

Seto Kaiba had refused to come into the precinct. He was rich enough and powerful enough to lawyer up and make the rest of her case hell without saying a single word on the record. Well, she probably had Jounouchi to thank that it hadn't happened already. Because Kaiba was tight-lipped. His first instincts were to guard his thoughts close and his secrets tighter than Fort Knox. Within the five minutes of meeting him, she also decided he was a grade A jerk.

The only time he thawed was in response to Jounouchi. But even toward his boyfriend(?), his matter-of-fact attitude seemed cold and alienating. She watched as the hurt compounded in Jounouchi with each cutting statement. It was like watching a car crash in slow motion.

Dan begged off early on to check in at the station and to deliver the confiscated Glock to Ella. Before he hightailed it, he confided that there were too many tempting practice targets gathered in one room. He probably still stung from their earlier fight in the car, and she wasn’t ready to apologize any more than he was.

The only person that Kaiba hadn't antagonized yet was Lucifer. It was not for a lack of trying though. Lucifer deflected every insult hurled his way by making some wry comment or innuendo aimed at Jounouchi, which fed right back into Kaiba's heightened hostility in some childish cycle.

She slapped her files and legal pad down on Lucifer's bar-top. She'd interview Kaiba there in lieu of her preferred interrogation room. It was close to the exit, and she refused to walk past the entrance to Lucifer's bedroom lest she was tempted to peek inside.

"Mister Kaiba, please have a seat." She gestured to the other bar stool. "I'll take your statement now."

None of the men moved at first. Then Lucifer peeled away with his bourbon in hand and sat primly on the piano bench facing the bar. All humor had fallen from his face as he studied her with dark, hooded eyes. He blinked like it was discretionary. Lucifer could be so unnaturally still when it suited him.

She squared her shoulders and turned away. She had a job to do. Her window of opportunity with Kaiba was probably closing as they spoke. She didn't have time to freak out that the literal, actual Devil was sitting not even five feet away.

Kaiba eventually took a seat at the bar, swiveling his seat to face her. Chloe recognized the power pose he'd assumed: spine straight, shoulders leveled, and head high. How could she not as one of a handful of female detectives in the department? Reflexively, she mirrored him, refusing to let him cow her.

With her pad and pen in hand, she began. "How do you know Matthew Yamashiro?"

The interview proceeded without any further hitch. Kaiba didn't share more than the bare minimum required to answer her questions. He responded truthfully, demonstrating none of the obvious micro-expressions associated with lying. To her surprise, there were no comments from the peanut gallery. Jounouchi remained fixed to the same spot, unwilling to let Kaiba out of his sight. The only sound from Lucifer's direction was the occasional clinking of glass whenever he refilled his drink.

Good thing she had her questions to drive the disquiet back.

About a month ago, Kaiba had cottoned on to the attempted corporate espionage and had hired the vic to ferret the spy out. It wasn't the first time he'd contracted Matthew, and Kaiba spoke highly of his previous work. But why Matthew had died in Kaiba's hotel?

"Yamashiro was meeting Powers on my behalf," explained Kaiba.

Chloe's eyebrows climbed into her hairline. "And he went to this meeting dressed like you? Carrying your wallet and phone?"

Kaiba reached into his pocket and pulled out an identical-looking mobile phone to the one collected by CSI. He deposited it on the table. "Not my phone exactly. I cloned mine and gave it to him to sell the charade, along with the clothes."

"You used him as a body double," Lucifer quipped from the sidelines.

Both she and Jounouchi startled at the conclusion. Jounouchi clenched both hands into fists and drew a deep breath as if to steady himself.

"If you want to call it that. Yamashiro and I aren't identical-looking, but that doesn't stop the people around here from mistaking him as me," Kaiba sneered.

She wouldn't punch her witness, no matter how much of an arrogant ass he was. Although she might fling some of Lucifer's liquor in the asshole's face if he kept up that patronizing expression. Clearly, no one had ever taught Kaiba manners. "So you sent Matthew in to talk and he ended up dead instead. That's some escalation."

Someone hadn’t just killed Matthew Yamashiro. They had beaten him and bashed his head in.

She narrowed her eyes, and he met her gaze with a well-practiced aloofness. He was hiding something. "You could have reported Powers to the authorities. But you went all cloak-and-dagger and sent a private security contractor with a military background after him. Matthew Yamashiro was going to do more than 'talk' to Powers, wasn’t he? You sent him to rough Powers up and maybe make an example of him."

"Dammit, Kaiba," Jounouchi swore. "Tell me you didn't."

Kaiba shot Jounouchi a sharp, warning look. But it was too late. Together, they had confirmed Chloe's suspicion. There was a thin line between so-called "private security contractors" and "fixers," especially in a city like LA. Corporate execs, no matter which country they were from, thought themselves above the law.

"I should charge you with criminal intimidation," threatened Chloe.

Kaiba smirked in reply, daring her to try. "I admit to nothing, Detective Decker."

"Fine. I'm homicide, so my first concern is my victim, who was working for you. You should be cooperating with the police. You should have been the one to check on Matthew Yamashiro and report his death. You could have cleared up a lot of misunderstanding by coming forward earlier. But you didn't."

Kaiba thinned his lips, displeased by the line of questioning.

Chloe continued, "I'll be frank. I'm looking at two possible suspects for Matthew Yamashiro's death: you and Maxwell Powers. Hell, you could have been working together. Or maybe we caught you before you killed Powers as your second victim."

"I didn't kill Yamashiro," he hissed, gripping the counter edge. "He was an impartial third-party negotiating on my behalf. I had no reason to hurt him. And Powers... It's a matter of time before he gets what's coming to him."

Negotiate: the word flashed in her mind's eyes like bright, neon lights. She folded her arms over her chest and leaned back in her seat. Kaiba may be an arrogant bastard, but he embodied the epitome of "Ice King." If he deemed something as beneath him, he had the money and the influence to sweep it under the rug without resorting to violence. He was someone more interested in controlling his own emotions and maintaining his public image as untouchable. This was the closest he'd come to losing his cool. It'd take a particular threat for Kaiba to retaliate in that way.

"Was Powers threatening you? Maybe blackmailing you with something?" Slowly, her attention drifted to Jounouchi at the edge of her vision.

Kaiba froze like a statue.

"Very good, Detective," Lucifer, always quick to catch onto her meaning, muttered in approval.

She caught herself before she could return the smile she'd heard in his words. "I'm right, aren't I?"

Kaiba unclenched his fists and folded his hands over his crossed knees. "For whatever reason, he blackmailed me instead of reporting back to his master. Probably thought he could get more money from me. No one was supposed to die. I don't know what went wrong between them, but it didn't change the fact that Powers still has his leverage. If Powers thought me dead, it gave me a window of opportunity. I took it."

Unable to keep quiet any longer, Jounouchi butted in, "You could have told us—told _me_  what was going on."

Jounouchi's admonishment knocked down some of Kaiba's self-imposed walls. She sensed a growing modicum of warmth as Kaiba spun his seat to face the other man. "I didn't want you to overreact."

She winced. That was so not the right thing to say.

"Overreact?!" Jounouchi hissed and moved like a blur to loom over Kaiba. "So instead you let me think you were dead? How the hell is that better?"

"It's not like I intended for that to happen. Not even the police would be incompetent enough to make that call. I said I was sorry, Jounouchi. You weren't supposed to get involved." Kaiba's attention flickered over to some point behind Chloe's shoulders, probably to Lucifer. His eyes hardened into icicles. "You were supposed to stay busy at work while I handled it."

"Newsflash, this—" Jounouchi swept both hands out, gesturing to Chloe, Lucifer, and everything in between. "Isn't handling things."

"Hey, that's enough." She rose to her feet and inserted herself between the two men. She planted one hand on Jounouchi's chest and gently eased him back. For a moment, she expected him to fight her.

"We're partners. We're supposed to be in this together." Jounouchi's voice cracked, heavy with renewed grief, at the same time that the mounting tension fractured under its own weight. He stomped out of the room without another word.

Guilt flashed across Kaiba's face, and his weight shifted to as if to pursue Jounouchi. Something, whether it was his pride or the present company, prevented him from following through. But his internal conflict was clear in the tight clamp of his jaws and his shadowed eyes. For a second, the man she first glimpsed in Yamashiro’s apartment, who had tenderly embraced Jounouchi with soft-spoken words, rose to the surface.

“You could apologize.” She didn’t know what came over her but she regretted the words as soon they left her mouth.

“It’s none of your business, but I already said I was sorry,” snapped Kaiba.

Defensiveness: that she recognized readily. “Yeah, well, don’t be surprised if he needs more time. You’re not owed forgiveness.”

Chloe hadn’t meant for her words to cut, but Kaiba recoiled like she’d slapped him. But that split second of vulnerability was gone as quickly as it came. He schooled his features in a blank expression, nodded at her, and ordered through gritted teeth, "Continue with your questions, detective. I don’t plan to be here all night."

Whatever Chloe planned to say next vanished at the rustle of Lucifer standing and the soft clink of glass against the piano’s polished surface. She kept her eyes trained on his back as he crossed his living room and stepped out onto the balcony. Swallowing the sudden lump lodged in her throat, she forced herself to focus. Yet there was no denying how the room had dimmed.


	3. Chapter 3

The hot, humid air hit Lucifer like a tidal wave as soon as he stepped out onto the balcony. Thank Dad he wasn't prone to sweating. One of the few perks of being the former Lord of Hell. Lucifer retrieved a cigarette from his case. His lighter even cooperated for once.

Defeat radiated from the slumped figure next to Lucifer. Jounouchi leaned all of his weight against the railing as if he had no strength to stand on his own. Given the recent fortuitous turn of events, he should be happier. His lover was alive, whole and unharmed.

Then again, the finer points of human emotions often eluded Lucifer.

Lucifer planted his lower back against the railing and crossed his ankles in a lazy lounge. From the balcony, he still maintained front row seats to the interrogation at his bar. Neither the diminishing light or distance dulled his supernatural senses. Kaiba wasn't likely to hurt the Detective, but Lucifer would be remiss if he didn't keep watch.

He took a deep drag. The nicotine gave him a jolt when it hit his veins. All thanks to the Detective's proximity. Apparently, that much hadn't changed between them. She still rendered him far too mortal. Or if Amenadiel was to be believed, it was something he did to himself when she was nearby.

Chloe and Kaiba were back on track, each wielding their respective professionalism and iciness like swords in a duel. She didn’t let Kaiba walk over her as he seemed determined to do. A spark of pride flared inside Lucifer, then relief quickly followed. He’d rather avoid using his abilities for now. No matter how satisfying it would be to break a pompous ass like Kaiba. One, because he wasn't sure how'd she react, and two, because Jounouchi would definitely react poorly. Then again, she hadn't needed him to solve cases for a while now. She had only kept him around because she wanted to _before_.

Now was an entirely different matter.

His hand trembled as he lifted the cigarette to his lips again. Must be the nicotine, he told himself.

Gradually, his companion unwound. Good. Lucifer had too many sourpusses in his home with one Seto Kaiba present. Any more and he'd be forced to install some "No Moping" signs. He made a note to never invite Kaiba to any of his parties.

"Is your chap always this…” Lucifer trailed off, hesitant to break the silence once the words left his mouth.

Jounouchi pushed his bangs back while keeping his eyes fixed on the darkening horizon. “What? Overbearing? Stubborn? Bullheaded? Infuriating?” he rattled off with a rising tide of ire.

“I was about to say wanker. But if the shoe fits." Lucifer shrugged, blowing a ring of smoke.

“It's not like I don't know how he gets sometimes. And he's gotten better about it with age. When we were teenagers, he did the dumbest, the most overdramatic shit. Dangerous shit. He once set an island to self-destruct, and we barely had fifteen minutes to get off of it. All as this big ‘fuck you’ to his old man.” Jounouchi implored Lucifer with wild eyes, willing him to understand.

Lucifer huffed a small laugh, caught off-guard by the smidgen of approval he felt. “Understandable, really. I've cut off my wings, multiple times, to flip Dad the bird. Though a fat lot of good that did.”

Still, he couldn't begrudge his wings completely when they helped save Chloe's life.

“What? Wings?” Jounouchi screwed his face in bafflement. “What does that have to do with anything?”

Lucifer rolled his eyes. “Yes, nevermind. You were rattling off an impressive list of your boyfriend's massive character flaws. Proceed.”

"I don't mean it like that,” Jounouchi protested.

Lucifer raised a sardonic eyebrow.

“Look, Kaiba's... I know people think he's this cold, heartless bastard. He's not. He trusts so few people: his brother, our circle of friends, me, Isono and a few other employees that have been with him and the company through thick and thin,” explained Jounouchi. The lovesick fool rose so quickly to the man's defense after ranting mere moments ago. “But maybe that's why he goes so overboard to protect us. I wish he wouldn’t default to the most dramatic options.”

Lucifer scoffed, expelling another cloud of smoke. But when the other man only furrowed his brow with no sense of irony, he explained, “It seems hypocritical for you to hold that against him. Need I remind you how we met? You came to the Devil for a favor. Most people regard Faustian bargains as a choice of last resort. So in that regard, the pair of you are well-matched.”

“I…” Jounouchi’s mouth opened to rally in his own defense, but all that escaped was another string of cursing in Japanese.

“I don’t know your history, but I reckon you’re both disgustingly self-sacrificing for one another.”

“Fine,” Jounouchi conceded with a scowl directed at the LA skyline. “But I’ve never faked my death. Twice.”

“Course not, you’re likable. It’s easy to see why he drives others to murder.”

Jounouchi laughed incredulously. “His attitude does rub people the wrong way."

How could Lucifer resist a setup like that? Waggling his eyebrows, he leered. "But he rubs you in all the right ways."

Jounouchi dropped his head into his hands and moaned in mortification. "Oh my God, please stop."

"No need to bring my Father into this." Lucifer wrinkled his nose and flicked ash over the side of the building. "I have plenty of room if you want to take him for a quickie. The poor sod could stand to loosen up. Or at least get that stick out his arse."

"Lucifer, I'm not having sex in your house."

"No, he will not." A sharp voice cut into the conversation with all the subtlety of a cleaver.

The Detective and Kaiba had joined them on the balcony. She hung back by the door with an unreadable expression, while Kaiba moved quickly to Jounouchi's side, glowering every step of the way.

How quaint that the little human thought he could intimidate Lucifer. He maintained a charming and seductive grin, amused by the other man's increasing ire. "Oh, possessive. Lucifer likes."

Predictably, Kaiba rose to the bait: all cold fury and balled fists. Lucifer wondered if he might hit him. It would even hurt with the detective so near. Over Kaiba’s shoulder, Jounouchi begged for Lucifer to stop while catching his boyfriend’s wrist to keep him from advancing. Why shouldn’t Lucifer needle the mortal? They were all in his territory.

"Stop antagonizing him,” chided Chloe.

He flicked his gaze to her, which she held without a flinch. She always took it upon herself to rein him in, but that was when she still thought him to be another human. Delusional, yes, and touched in the head, but human.

"As you wish, Detective." Lucifer took several steps away from the couple before turning his attention to the ocean of lights that was LA after nightfall.

"Let's talk," Jounouchi and Kaiba spoke in perfect unison.

Lucifer snorted and rolled his eyes. He heard them leave and settle on the sofa in his living room. Then he tuned them out when it became obvious they were about to hash out the tired you-let-me-believe-you-were-dead bit again. But that also left him alone with the Detective, a notion that both thrilled and terrified him.

Stupid, bloody emotions.

Her boot heels clicked across his balcony, growing louder as she neared. His body tensed as she rested against the railing with barely a foot of space between them. Lucifer took two long inhales of his smoke before stubbing it out. She'd never been a fan of his smoking. And while he may be immortal, she was far from immune to the effects of second-hand smoke.

This seemed too good to be true. She hadn't run off screaming or threatened him with her service weapon. He knew that she'd only come along because Kaiba was here. Such was her dedication to her job and the strength of her moral compass. Lucifer wouldn't push his luck and do something as greedy as look at her or talk to her.

Standing next to him, she sighed long and deeply. A whisper of fabric when she shifted her weight. This was it. She’d walk away now.

Except she didn't. She half-turned, not quite facing him full on, and asked, "What are you doing with Joey Wheeler?"

“Whatever does it look like, darling?” He kept his tone light, layering a smidgen of playfulness on top. He knew it bothered her when he answered with a question, but he couldn't help the defensiveness springing up.

She narrowed her eyes. “It looks like you're interfering with a police investigation, and from what I overheard, engaging in vigilante justice.”

"There was a killer to punish, which is my Dad-given right in case you've forgotten." Judging by her sharp inhale, that last part came out harsher than he intended. But he couldn't let her forget or ignore who and what he was. She spent so long denying the truth. Look where that led them.

She braced harder against the balcony, squeezing her eyes shut as she gathered strength. The expression was achingly familiar to Lucifer, one reserved for when he ran his mouth too far during interrogation or when he insulted Daniel one time too many.

“Lucifer.”

The sound of her saying his name struck him like lightning and rang through his bones like thunder. Try as he might, he couldn't find an inkling of fear.

“You could have called me,” she said so matter-of-factly that he almost collapsed in shock.

“No, I couldn't have. You requested space, remember? Had I known you were assigned the case that goes doubly so.” He had every intention of respecting her wish. Calling her, murder or not, accomplished the complete opposite.

She bit her lower lip as her face fell. Another one of her horrendous nervous habits, but it never put him off like it should. “Okay, right. You were… keeping your word. Then why... Why help Joey at all? I mean, are you two like friends? Or whatever?”

He almost laughed despite the situation. “No, we’re not friends. Nor have we had sex. Not that I would be opposed. Joey is quite fit. But no, I’m simply holding up my end of the bargain.”

"So you made a deal... " she said with the same suspicion as when she thought Beatrice might be up to some mischief.

Lucifer viciously stamped down the budding warmth in his chest. He would not let his guard down. He refused to fall prey to false hope. "Yes, he asked me to find Kaiba's killer. An unusual request, sure, but something I’m more than capable of delivering. We hadn't decided on what dear Joey would give in return, so I took a devilish IOU. Although now I think about it, that deal is now null and void given the man’s not dead. Which is a pity in more ways than one."

He nearly jumped out of his skin or at least off the balcony when she laid a hand over his forearm. When she tugged him to face her, he offered no resistance.

She looked up at his face briefly before dropping both her gaze and hands away. "Why even take his deal then? You don't do every favor asked of you, right?"

"Of course not," he scoffed. "I'm not a bloody genie."

"Okay."

He swallowed. Why was this so bloody hard? "It was interesting." Which wasn't a lie even if that wasn't the whole picture.

She sensed there was more and waved her hand, urging him to continue.

"There's more. You're still holding things back. Please, Lucifer. Can't you tell me? Aren't we past this?" She sounded hurt, tired, and mad all at once.

Why indeed? Lucifer had actively avoided digging too deeply into his own motivations. He'd never been one for self-introspection, not even in his early days back in the Silver City. Or more accurately, especially back then. Linda encouraged it now, but he rarely liked whatever he uncovered. Some things were better off buried. But he could make the effort because she asked.

Jounouchi had stumbled into his penthouse like a drowning man in search of a life raft. Lucifer couldn't turn him away. And he had helped Jounouchi because... It felt right. Because he wanted to. And never in his wildest imagination did he think today would bring him back into her orbit. Jounouchi's favor was supposed to be one last hurrah, a salute to the end of an era in his time here on earth.

His attention wandered back to Chloe, drinking in her sea-blue eyes and golden hair haloed by warm light from the penthouse's interior. Then his traitorous mind conjured memories of her limp in his arms and the air thick with gunpowder. He’d almost lost her. Like Charlotte, she would have gone somewhere he had no hope of following.

His throat clogged, but he forced the words out. Because Lucifer Morningstar did not lie. "You humans do all sorts of stupid things for the people you l—care about. And in recent years, I've found I'm not entirely immune either."

Unable to control himself, he reached out and brushed a thumb along her shirt collar, right over the spot where her bulletproof vest caught the bullet. She shivered at the contact. He pulled his hand away like she was the one burning with Hellfire, but she caught him in mid-air and didn't release him.

"You empathize with him."

Her conclusion made him want to crawl out of his skin.

"I wouldn't go that far," he protested and was cut down by her gem-sharp eyes. "But yes, I suppose I felt a kinship with dear Joey."

"That's a good thing," she reassured him, swiping a hesitant finger over his knuckles.

He marveled at his hand intertwined with hers. The sight was as miraculous as she was. He couldn't believe how easily she was talking to him—touching him like she didn't know better. It seemed too good to be true.

“I'm sorry...” He licked his parched lips as he considered his options. He wasn't sorry about going around the police to help Jounouchi secure justice. He wouldn't apologize for honoring her request for space when she gave no indication to the contrary. Instead, he settled on the only meaningful thing he could sincerely apologize for, “I'm sorry for causing you distress, Detective.”

“Why are you apologizing?”

His hands flexed, but he forced his grip to remain loose enough for her to break free. “You said forgiveness is not owed, but I wanted to try?”

“Was that because of what I said inside?”

He nodded hesitantly.

”I was talking to Seto about Joey.” At his blank look, Chloe elaborated. “It wasn't some veiled comment about us. They're not us, and their problems are different from ours.”

Lucifer blinked owlishly. “Oh,” he said dumbly.

Did that mean she had already forgiven him? Or more impossibly, there was nothing he needed to apologize for? Both possibilities should be impossible. A tremor in their intertwined fingers shook him free of his stupor. Soon he realized it wasn't only her hands, but her entire body quivered under her quiet sniffles.

"Detective?" he asked cautiously, caught between equal parts dread and anger. He pulled his hand from her grip, regretting the loss of warmth. "Are you okay? Are you hurt?"

She turned her head away, but not before he glimpsed her teary eyes and snotty nose. "I'm fine," she insisted.

"Don't lie to me," he hissed. "You're crying."

It wasn't a full-body sob, and she tried to maintain her composure. Still, he wanted to punch something. Preferably whatever was causing her distress. And if he was the source... he considered the edge of the building long and hard.

She nabbed his forearm again to prevent him from withdrawing. "I'm relieved, Lucifer!"

"I beg your pardon. Relieved over what?" He shot her a flabbergasted look. If anyone should be relieved, it should be him.

"Everything! That you're still here! That even after learning your Lucifer-ness is anything but metaphors, you're still you. You're still making innuendos, hitting on my suspects, making cases all about yourself, trying to bring killers to justice." She gestured emphatically to the two men huddled together on his leather couch. "And you still... care about people. You're still moved by their loss."

He squirmed but made no further attempt to extract himself from her grip. "You give me far too much credit."

"And you don't give yourself enough." Her words blew him to pieces like a grenade. Only in her presence though. Always in her presence. "I should be the one apologizing, Lucifer. I'm sorry I ghosted you for a month. After this long, I should have known what a difficult position I put you in. I should have talked to you sooner."

A month was but a blink of the eye for immortals, yet the last one had felt like an eternity. He would wait another eternity for her.

"Well, turnabout is fair play, darling." He blinked furiously and struggled to keep his tone light. A vice grip squeezed around his heart. “And you're forgiven. I gather you had other things on your mind.”

A coy smile spread across her lips while humor turned the blue of her eyes electric. “Yeah, well, you are a lot to take in.”

Lucifer could kiss her right then and there. If she'd let him. But an intrusion shattered the moment like a sledgehammer to glass.

"Detective," Kaiba called from the balcony doors. Jounouchi hovered not far behind him.

They sprang apart. Lucifer swallowed the scream of frustration clawing at his throat. Every bloody time they tried to talk or made any minuscule amount of progress, someone or something interrupted! He glared at the darkened sky above. Surely this was His fault.

Chloe furtively wiped the corner of her eyes with her sleeve and fixed her "detective face" in place. "Yes, Mister Kaiba?"

Kaiba hefted his phone up. The screen shone like a beacon in the night. "Powers is calling."

-x-x-x-

What was that English idiom? You could cut the tension with a knife?

It started with a call from Powers. Jounouchi didn’t know if the man was merely desperate or ballsy at this point. He, Lucifer, and the detective had listened with no comment as Powers tried to exhort Kaiba for a ludicrous amount in exchange for whatever photographic evidence he had. Even as Chloe made very definitive “no” gestures, Kaiba agreed to an in-person meeting to hand over said payment. No cops.

Kaiba had no intention of letting Powers get away though. Jounouchi wondered aloud if he might use the same irradiated money trick he used when Jounouchi's father had kidnapped him. That had drawn a concerned look from Chloe and a mildly impressed one from Lucifer. But no, Kaiba didn't have enough time to arrange that and would instead rely on some advanced micro-trackers used in current gen Duel Disks.

Jounouchi was used to the way Kaiba bulldozed through everything. It exasperated him, even drove him up a wall at times. Detective Decker, on the other hand, didn’t appreciate it at all. She was also not shy about making that known to Kaiba or anyone else listening.

Watching her go toe-to-toe with Jounouchi’s thick-headed boyfriend called for some popcorn. Jounouchi might have had more sympathy if Kaiba hadn’t recently pulled his play-dead stunt. Lucifer seemed to agree. He was content to sit back and toss back glass after glass of bourbon, watching Chloe with a soft, almost reverent expression whenever he thought no one paid him any attention.

Yeah, Jounouchi hadn't missed the “moment” the two were having on the balcony. He wasn't blind. Kaiba wasn't either, but he also didn't care. Jounouchi hadn't seen his boyfriend this on edge with another man since they last ran into Pegasus at a charity event.

“This way we both get what we want. I secure and destroy the blackmail, and then you can arrest him for murder,” Kaiba drawled in a bored tone. At least with the Detective, he was his usual brand of aloof bastard: condescending but not actively antagonizing.

“It's almost seven-thirty,” Chloe argued. “Where do you even get five hundred thousand dollars at this hour?”

“I have my ways.”

“Legal ways, right?” She narrowed her eyes.

Kaiba turned away, withdrew his phone, and started texting. It was the kind of dismissal he used on Yuugi on occasion. But Jounouchi could see that he was not as calm as he pretended to be. Kaiba stood with his spine ramrod straight, every movement overly controlled to convey the picture of a man with no weaknesses.

Jounouchi approached Chloe. “Look, I'm not any happier about this than you are. He won't back down. We either help him and keep him safe, or he'll try to do this on his own.”

To his surprise, Lucifer spoke up in support. “I agree. If this can be resolved discreetly, wouldn't that be preferable? There's no need to out these gentlemen before they're ready to leave the closet.”

She rolled her eyes. “Since when do you care about handling things discreetly?”

“Well, I don't see the fuss in needing to hide anything about myself,” piqued Lucifer, causing Jounouchi and Chloe to exchange wry looks. “But they do. Or at least Kaiba does. Otherwise, they wouldn't be in this mess.”

Her expression softened even if the rest of her stance didn't. “Still, keeping that a secret isn't worth risking your lives.”

“No. But they have the Devil and LA's best detective on their side, so it won't come to that,” Lucifer proclaimed, bounding over to stand behind Chloe with an energy reminiscent of an overeager puppy.

Jounouchi could see she had been won over, albeit reluctantly, before she nodded. When Kaiba left to arrange the money and trackers, Chloe insisted on accompanying him. Jounouchi agreed, knowing she'd keep his boyfriend in line. Unfortunately, that left him and Lucifer lounging around the penthouse until they returned.

While Lucifer drifted toward his piano, Jounouchi took several minutes to get in contact with another Kaiba. Over the day, Mokuba had left him five voicemails and almost thirty text messages. With a heavy heart, Jounouchi realized that Mokuba had been in town since morning. The latest text read: _Seto got in contact. Let me know you’re okay too._

 _I’m fine_ , he sent. Then after a moment, he fired another one: _I’m sorry._

Mokuba’s response came immediately: _Glad you’re okay. You worried me when you disappeared. We’ll talk later. I’m helping Seto gather the cash._

Ignoring the kid’s calls hadn’t sat well with Jounouchi, but he couldn’t see beyond his single-minded need to find who he thought was Kaiba’s killer. With 5000 miles and over 9 hours of travel time between them, Jounouchi deemed Mokuba too far away to provide the backup he needed. Mokuba may be a Kaiba, but he didn’t possess the same ruthless force of will his other brother had in spades. So he had sought it closer to home, no matter what it might cost him.

For the first time, Jounouchi registered the melody weaving through the air—something jazzy and crooning. Meeting his eyes over the top of the piano, Lucifer transitioned to an upbeat pop tune that tugged at his memories. He broke into a wide grin when he finally put a name to the song. “Really? Katy Perry?”

“You’re welcome to make a request. I may not take it though.” Lucifer shrugged, powering through the chorus of _Hot ‘n Cold_.

Jounouchi leaned against the instrument, tilting forward to catch sight of Lucifer’s fingers dancing over the keys. It was fascinating to watch. Out of all his close friends, only Anzu and Shizuka were artistically inclined, but neither of them played music. “So you’re actually good at this. I thought the piano was for show.”

Despite being seated, Lucifer still managed to look down his nose at him. “Come by Lux in the future. I play the occasional set downstairs. You can see for yourself how good I am then.”

“So you own a nightclub, perform, and solve crimes for the police.”

“With the police,” Lucifer corrected. “Mainly with the Detective, but occasionally with Daniel. I’m a Devil of many talents.”

Jounouchi shook his head in disbelief. “You’re full of surprises.”

“As are you. You’re very comfortable with extrajudicial punishment.”

Jounouchi gripped the edge of the piano and straightened into a standing position. He and Kaiba always did gravitate toward that same sort of barbaric protectiveness. They had for years and years since they were teenagers, well before they ever became a couple. Damn Lucifer for being right.

“I meant that as a compliment,” Lucifer added with a growing frown.

He drew in a deep, fortifying breath. “You asked me earlier what I planned to do to Kaiba’s killer when I still thought he was dead.”

“Yes, back at Matthew Yamashiro’s apartment.”

“You were right. I wanted to hurt the asshole,” confessed Jounouchi. His gang days were long gone, but he never pretended to be some saint. Over the years, he had gotten better about not falling back on old ways.

Lucifer watched him with wary eyes, fingers stilling over the ivory keys. His lips thinned in a straight and unpleasant grimace.

“But,” Jounouchi continued. “I wouldn’t kill him.”

“You’re awfully sure of your answer.” Anger flashed in Lucifer’s eyes. For a moment, they appeared red as blood. “Lying doesn’t become you.”

“Look, would I kill to protect Kaiba? Save his life? Probably. Definitely for my sister’s sake. But kill for him? No, I wouldn’t. No matter what you think of him, he wouldn’t want me to either.” He let Lucifer stare him down. Though he hoped the occasion didn’t call for him to use his powers. While Lucifer’s power was nowhere near as bad as being under the Millennium Rod’s control, it wasn’t a cakewalk either.

Lucifer lowered his gaze to the keys, forehead furrowed in deep thought as he coaxed several discordant notes from the instrument. That foreboding feeling lurking in the background surged to the surface. Ever since they first met, Jounouchi sensed Lucifer was wrestling with something. He hadn’t given it too much thought while swept away in his own grief. Now Jounouchi could see it clearly, and he wondered what demons were rattling at the gates of Lucifer’s inner fortress.

After a long moment of silence, Lucifer said, “It’s not a choice you would make.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Then you’re a better man than most.”

-x-x-x-

This was far from Chloe's ideal plan. There was no backup on standby. Kaiba waited inside the abandoned building with several hundred thousand dollars in cash he'd magicked from somewhere on short notice and only Lucifer for company. Meanwhile, she and Jounouchi stayed out of sight and kept watch on the single entrance/exit into the whole mess.

"I should be in there." Jounouchi sulked by her side.

She shook her head. "Nope, I'm not letting two unarmed civilians face a possible murderer on their own."

She hated to admit it, but they were running out of time to catch their killer. Powers knew he was in over his head. He knew the police were onto him now. He'd only stick around LA for as long as he believed Kaiba might cave to his blackmail. If he fled across state lines, he'd be in the wind.

They had the advantage of numbers on their side; she told herself. It was four-against-one. With Lucifer's supernatural strength, it may even be more like forty-against-one.

"Lucifer's technically a civilian too," he argued.

"Yeah, but he's—" She bit her tongue. "Lucifer has experience with this sorta thing. And he's not exactly unarmed."

The last time they attempted a money exchange, Lucifer had goaded her into shooting him. For a second that seemed to stretch into an eternity, she'd believed his crazy claims. Then he'd collapsed, bleeding and bewildered. Now she knew better. She was going into the situation with her eyes more or less wide open and confident in the knowledge Lucifer was more than human.

"So he has other abilities besides unlocking desires?" asked Jounouchi.

Her head whipped toward Jounouchi in alarm. Had Lucifer told him? Who was she kidding? Lucifer blabbed about who he was in the way most people talked about the weather. Most people, herself included, chose not to believe him

"Yeah, he's strong." She watched how he took the news. "Like superhero strong. He should be able to protect your bo—your friend."

He rubbed the back of his neck and said in a serious and hoarse voice, "I'd feel better if he was bulletproof too."

She coughed, earning herself a concerned look. "I'm fine," she said instead of responding to his actual concern. "It'll be fine."

Was she trying to convince him or herself?

A loud crash sounded around the corner of the building. They jumped, and she went straight for her gun. "Stay out of sight," she whispered and maneuvered him further out of sight. "I'll be right back."

Sticking close to the shadows of neighboring buildings, she walked the perimeter of the area with all her senses on high alert. They still had about fifteen minutes before the designated meeting time, but that was no reason to let down their guard. She slipped around the side of the warehouse. Here the wall was lined with half-full dumpsters and stacks of rotting wood. A plank clattered to the ground, followed by a dark four-legged shape darting across the lane. It barked before vanishing into the shadows again.

Okay, just a stray dog. Nothing to worry about. She made her way back to Jounouchi quickly. She ducked back into the alley where she'd left him only to find it empty.

"Shit," she cursed. "Joey, where are you?"

"Drop the gun, detective," called an oily voice from behind her.

She spun on her heels, swinging her sidearm up in self-defense. Powers had cornered her by blocking off the entrance to the alley. He gripped Jounouchi by the shoulder with one hand while he pressed the business end of a pistol against Jounouchi's temple. Jounouchi's Adam's apple bobbed when Powers’ safety clicked off.

Jounouchi's safety took precedent. Chloe had to put civilians first. She slowly raised both arms in surrender, turning her palms outward and readjusting the gun to aim at the sky. She then knelt down and laid the gun down at her feet. For a moment, she briefly considered the second firearm hidden in her boot. She came prepared after all. But it was too risky a move if Powers kept his gun to Jounouchi's head.

"Stand up and kick it away," Powers ordered.

She sent her service arm skittering into the darkness behind her.

"Now come over here. Get your handcuffs out and cuff yourself to Joey here."

She snapped one cuff to Jounouchi's right wrist and the other to her left. Being tied together would make it impossible for them to run. From her new position, she could better assess the threat that Powers posed. The first thing that caught her eye was the fist-sized bruise, purple and ringed with green, painting his left cheek. It was too old to be from his earlier confrontation with Kaiba. Chloe guessed it was a souvenir from his encounter with Yamashiro days ago.

Even in the dim light, she could see the whites of his eyes, darting back and forth erratically. He was panicking. Unfortunately, that made him more unpredictable. An itchy trigger finger was a thousand times worse than a disciplined one. But Powers' primary concerns were a payout and getting away. A smarter or better-prepared man would have cut his losses and fled. He didn't seem stupid enough to kill another person, especially a cop. Given his line of work, he must know the police would never stop hunting him if he did.

Powers maneuvered around them until he was no longer blocking the exit. He didn't lower his weapon though. "Let's go."

Sparing Jounouchi a quick glance, she muttered, "Follow my lead. Don't try anything and we'll be fine."

The opportunity to escape would present itself eventually. God, she hoped so. Without another word, Powers herded them into the abandoned warehouse. To where Lucifer and Kaiba waited.


	4. Chapter 4

Lucifer fiddled with his signet ring, watching as the scant light danced off the onyx stone. Kaiba could pass for a statue, his legs planted shoulder-width apart and arms crossed over his chest. A duffel bag stuffed full of American bills, all Benjamins, sat on the dusty floor between them. Kaiba had been giving him the silent treatment for twenty-two minutes and counting. He reminded Lucifer of Amenadiel at his most insufferable: stoic and holier-than-thou. 

For Dad's sake, this waiting was worse than a stakeout. Lucifer was ready to tear his hair out if something didn't happen soon.

"Can't you stand still for one second?" Kaiba snarled. "You're worse than Jounouchi."

Lucifer rolled his eyes. "And I can't imagine why'd he go for a stuffy bore like you. Love makes you all stupid and boring, doesn't it?"

If looks could kill, Lucifer would be right back in Hell.

Lucifer checked the time. Five minutes to go. Hmm, speak of the him. He picked up a set of footfalls approaching. No, he counted multiple people's footsteps. The hair on the back of his neck rose at the realization. Kaiba heard the same noise several moments later and bent over to retrieve the cash.

Lucifer planted his hand over Kaiba's stomach and held him back. "Wait," he warned. "He's not alone."

A shadowed blob peeled off from the room's long shadows. For a moment, it almost looked like a three-headed monster. One by one, Jounouchi, Chloe, and Powers came into view. Terror and anger waged a war inside him as fierce as the one once fought between Michael and himself. The detective sported no visible injuries, but she and Jounouchi were handcuffed together. Even though Powers favored Jounouchi with his weapon, she'd still be a sitting duck.

An inhuman growl ripped free of Lucifer's throat. "You let her go right now."

"Stay back!" Despite the faint stench of fear wafting off the cretin, Powers still thought himself in control of the situation. He remained oblivious to the fact he'd invited the full force of Hell's fury on himself.

"Jounouchi?" Kaiba's voice remained steady. Their eyes met, locked in what seemed to be a silent conversation.

Jounouchi was similarly calm in his response. "We're fine. He got the jump on us was all."

Powers dug his gun firmly into the back of his captive's head, causing Jounouchi and Kaiba to flinch simultaneously. "Do you have the money?"

Kaiba unzipped the bag, revealing the piles of cash within. "Five hundred thousand. Like we agreed."

"Take five steps forward, drop the bag, and then take another ten steps back."

Kaiba took measured steps toward the center of the room as ordered. He dropped the bag with a thump and backed away just as quickly. As he neared Lucifer, he grabbed Lucifer's wrist with clammy hands and tried to drag him along. Through the touch, Lucifer could sense the growing panic barely concealed under Kaiba's mask.

Lucifer refused to budge from his spot though, rooted like a mountain. His entire world had narrowed to Chloe. "Now let them go."

"No, they're my insurance policy to get out of here. Your reputation precedes you, Mister Kaiba, even here in America. So if you care about your boy-toy, you're will back. The. Fuck. Away." Powers punctuated each word with a jab to the back of Jounouchi's head.

Lucifer let out a humorless laugh, and the blackmailer finally looked at him for the first time. He drew himself impossibly taller. The incandescent bulbs overhead flickered. "Oh, I'm the one you should worry about, Maxie."

"Morningstar," Kaiba barked, tugging harder at his wrist. "Shut up. You're not helping."

“This is your one and only chance,” warned Lucifer. “Let them go, turn over your blackmail, take your ill-gotten cash, and run. Cross me and there's nowhere on Earth or Hell you can hide from me. We all know you're never going to Heaven.”

Powers—the stupid, greedy degenerate—shook his head. “No, I’m the one with the gun here. I’m not giving you people anything.”

“He’s right, you know?” Chloe piqued, voice flat but eyes bright with a calculating light. "Backup is on their way. They'll have you and this entire place surrounded in minutes."

"You're bluffing," Powers hissed, eyes frantically darting around in search of a SWAT team waiting in the dark. 

She continued to egg him. "If you let us go, I can plead to the DA on your behalf. But if you hurt anyone else here, you will spend the rest of your life behind bars. Or worse. California still has the death penalty on the books."

Powers lashed out, slamming the butt of his pistol into Chloe's temple. The strike sent her crumbling to the floor and dragging Jounouchi down after her. For several moments, the only sound heard was her pained and labored breathing. 

"All you motherfuckers talk too much." His gun jumped back and forth between Chloe and Jounouchi. 

Jounouchi eased her into a sitting position and brushed her hair back. Blood dripped from the gash cutting across her left temple, flowing steadily down the side of her face. Her vibrant blue eyes were hazy with pain. She crumbled into herself and drew her knees in to protect herself. 

Lucifer saw nothing but red. He tore his arm out of Kaiba's grip and snarled, "You miserable sack of skin. You'll rue the day you laid a hand on her. I'll rip you limb from limb."

Around him, the temperature spiked, and the shadows writhed. A familiar inferno roared to life inside him. Lucifer welcomed it in like an old friend. For a while, he thought he'd lost it in exchange for his wings. But it returned in full force after he finally ended Cain's miserable life. Now he summoned it forth: his Devil face and humanity's worst nightmare. 

Jounouchi paled a deathly white. The chain tethering him to Chloe stretched tautly but didn't break.

Kaiba took two shaky steps away. 

Powers trained his gun on Lucifer. His eyes widened and jaw dropped as his anxieties morphed into a full-blown terror. "No, stay away from me." He squeezed the trigger, and his shot went wide.

The bullet whizzed past Lucifer's head and impacted something on the far wall behind him. It didn't matter if he was vulnerable in her presence.  Nothing would stop him from flattening this wretched insect into the ground.

He advanced, inevitable as the heat death of the universe. So consumed by his rage, he didn't notice Chloe reaching into her right boot. 

"Down!" She withdrew a small pistol with one hand and shoved Jounouchi down with the other. She twisted around and fired once, burying a bullet into Powers' left kneecap.

Their murderer dropped, howling in pain. 

Lucifer sprinted to close the remaining distance and leaped clear over the two handcuffed hostages. He landed heavily on top of Powers' writhing body, pinning him firmly down. He clamped a vice grip around Powers' throat. With his remaining hand, he wrenched the gun away, snapping several fingers in the process and ripping another delirious scream out of Powers. Lucifer flung the weapon away.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry," Powers wailed. He squeezed his eyes shut, unable to bear the sight of Lucifer's ravaged face. "Please don't kill me. Oh god, I'm sorry!"

"Dear old Dad can't help you."

"Lucifer, stop," she pleaded from somewhere behind him.

Lucifer squeezed with a fraction of his strength until Powers' face turned red and he wheezed for air.

"Lucifer! You're killing him!" Her sure fingers buried in his jacket sleeve and yanked to no avail.

"I'm a monster, remember? This is what I do."

"You're not!"

Without releasing his prey, Lucifer tilted his head to meet her eyes. "Cain would very much disagree. Oh wait, he can't. Because I killed him."

To her credit, she didn't flinch or look away. Her nails dug into his forearm, no doubt leaving finger-shaped bruises and crescent marks that would have been impossible for anyone else to make. The pinpricks of pain were almost enough to shake him free of his rage-fueled fugue. But it was her eyes, beautiful and resolute, that undid him. They could unmake him every time.

"No, listen to me," she demanded all his attention. "In our line of work, we don't always get easy choices or even good ones. Sometimes we take the least shitty option, but that doesn't change the fact it's shitty. I've killed people before, Lucifer. I shot Malcolm dead, remember? I tried to kill Pierce first, and my only regret is that I didn’t finish him first.”

Lucifer opened his mouth to argue. He had saved her from Pierce and his men. He didn’t have to go back, but he chose to.

She shook her head and tightened her grip. “That choice to kill? It  _ never _  gets easier. And it haunts me. I have nightmares about Pierce. I’m still having nightmares about Malcolm. But every day I do this job, I need to be ready to make that choice again. I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you from that, Lucifer. But this? Today's not one of the hard days. We have him. He's not getting away. He’s will face justice. It's time to let the law handle the rest."

She loosened her grip, flattened her palms, and rubbed his bicep as if to calm him. "We're better than that.  _ You're  _ better than that."

Helipad. Precipice. Cain coming at him with a Hell-forged blade. That was not a choice Lucifer could take back. He would have to live with those consequences, whatever they may be. But Chloe was right about one thing: Lucifer could make a different choice for today. Just like she did when she shot Powers in the knee.

Gradually, he released the Hellfire simmering beneath his skin. His more human face reasserted itself. He pried his hand away from Powers, one finger at a time. Ignoring the murderer's whimpers of pain, he pulled Chloe toward him. Unfortunately, Jounouchi followed close behind, falling and flailing against her back.

"Handcuffs," Jounouchi reminded them. He sounded like he'd rather they forgot him entirely.

"You mind?" She presented her cuff and arched a fine, entreating eyebrow.

Lucifer ran a hand over her cuff, down the chain, and finally over Jounouchi's shaking wrist. A clatter echoed when the handcuffs hit the floor. Jounouchi scrambled away, making his way back to his boyfriend. 

"Thanks." She actually smiled.

The only response he managed was to brush his thumb over the angry red branding her wrist. The flutter of her pulse point grounded him. She let him until his heart no longer pounded like he ran a marathon. He released her and turned his dark eyes on their blackmailer-cum-murderer.

Powers cowered, trying to fold himself into some small, indistinct ball. “No, stay away,” he moaned. Blood oozed sluggishly from his wound.

“Lucifer.” She reached for him again.

“Don’t worry, Detective, I won’t hurt him.” At least not here, not now. “But there is something we should discuss before the rest of your colleagues get here. Maxie,” he cooed but employed no charm to calm the man’s Hell-inspired terror. “You have some naughty photos that these gentlemen would rather keep out of the public eye. You will hand over every last one and tell us where you keep any digital copies. If you know what’s good for you.” 

He growled the last part and watched with a spark of satisfaction as Powers tried to scramble back but aggravated his injury instead. He’ll put the fear of the Devil in this man if it was the last thing he did.

Powers cast a desperate and beseeching in Chloe’s direction. “Anything. I’ll tell you anything. Give you anything. Just keep  _ it _  away from me!” he wailed.

All too soon, she herded him away from Powers and retrieve her cuffs. Despite her head injury, she moved with rock-solid conviction to wrangle him into cuffs. Her voice was flat and firm as she read him his Miranda rights. With one hand staunching Powers' wound, she fished her phone out and officially called the arrest into the station.

Now that his rage had abandoned him, all he had left was apprehension. Was he supposed to stay or go? Jounouchi and Kaiba huddled together on the other side of the room. They'd reverted to conversing quietly in Japanese again. Periodically, they'd glance in Lucifer's direction, no doubt unsettled by what they'd seen. And Chloe? Was he distracting her? Was his continued presence making everything worse for everyone?

When she hung up with the precinct, she swept her gaze up and down the length of his body. With a gentleness he didn't think possible anymore, she said, "Please stay."

So he did.

-x-x-x-

Chloe reluctantly allowed the EMT to fuss over her. She refused to let the ambulance cart her off to the hospital. Yes, her head throbbed where Powers pistol-whipped her, but she wanted to go home to Trixie and sleep in her own bed. So she'd bite her tongue while they cleaned her wound and applied a butterfly bandage.

Lucifer hovered nearby. She could almost feel him vibrate with nervous energy. The emergency vehicles' lighting did him no favors. They washed out his complexion until he looked sickly and stricken. He refused medical attention more than once, loudly claiming the blood staining his trousers didn't belong to him.

"I'm fine," she reassured him from her place inside the ambulance.

His frown only deepened. His eyes only tightened.

By the time the medic finished with her, Dan appeared at the foot of the ambulance. He offered her a hand when she moved to climb out of the vehicle.

"The lieutenant's sending Mister Kaiba and Wheeler home for now. They won't be making their official statements until tomorrow. Maxwell Powers being taken to LA County. They’ll keep him for overnight observation under police guard." Dan pushed her hair back to examine the gash and tsked. "Dammit, Chloe, you need to be more careful."

She brushed him aside. "It was a calculated risk." She had needed to get to her hidden gun.

Lucifer inhaled sharply but said nothing.

Dan threw up both hands in defeat. "Go home, Chloe. I'll take care of things for tonight."

As soon as Dan left her side, Lucifer replaced him. He stood as close as possible without touching her, which was impressive given his general lack of adherence to the concept of "personal space." His arms twitched, reaching for her one second and withdrawing on the next. 

"Lucifer—"

He jumped at the sound of his name and backed away. "On second thought, let's call Daniel back to escort you home. It's for the best, really. You've had a stressful night."

There was no trace of his usual easy confidence or the bone-rattling wrath from minutes ago. He was afraid; she realized. He'd been afraid for her before, but now he feared what she might think after seeing his nastier side again. She could tell him it had been easier the second time: that the fear had abated when she recognized him underneath. But would he believe her? 

He may be physically fine, but emotionally? Well, let's face it. Lucifer Morningstar could be an emotional wreck on the best of days.

It didn't matter that they were in the middle of a crime scene. She was so exhausted and wrung out by the emotional roller-coaster of a day. Her head ached. She wanted him to calm down and not spontaneously combust where he stood. She was tired of thinking and over-thinking.

Lucifer once commended her for her "notable instincts." Now seemed a good a time as ever to let them lead her. Her body moved before her brain caught on. Two quick steps placed her back in his personal bubble. When she finally wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders, it came as a relief. Like taking that first inhale after holding her breath for too long.

He froze up. Sure, he froze up with Trixie, but never with her. Hers was a touch he’d welcomed unconditionally from the start.

"Chloe?" he whispered, sounding impossibly broken.

"You're supposed to hug me back."

"Right..." He slowly wound his arms around her waist. His palms hovered at her hips like he was giving her time to change her mind.

She wouldn't.

They stayed like that for what felt like an eternity, swaying to the sound of the bustling scene around them. He was as warm and solid as she remembered. Up close, she didn't smell sulfur, brimstone, or any of the other things usually associated with Hell. There was only his cologne; sharp, masculine, and probably atrociously expensive. He pressed his large hands against the small of her back, rubbing soothing circles into her skin through the cotton. 

"Come home with me?" she spoke into his shirt buttons and listened to his breath catch. "I'll put Trixie to bed and then we can talk."

"About what?"

"Everything. Or anything you want."

"As you wish."

Lucifer insisted on driving. Given her wooziness, she let him. She pressed her forehead against the cool windowpane and watched the city fly by. He spent the entire drive hunched over her car's steering wheel with hands fixed at two and ten. Whether it was because of his height or the molasses-like silence, she had no idea. Most startling of all was he kept under the speed limit. 

After they parked in her spot at the apartment complex, Lucifer was out of the car and holding the passenger door open before she could blink. The way he smiled was earnest yet desperate. The heat of the hand he offered reminded her of the last time Trixie had a fever. He released her hand as soon as she climbed out, leaving her bereft.

But he didn’t run away as she led them into the complex. Her keys jingled cheerfully in counterpoint to the weighty mood nipping at their heels. Lucifer lingered in the hall after she unlocked the front door and pushed it open. Trixie’s babysitter caught her before she could invite Lucifer in, so she left the door ajar and hoped the message was clear.

“Thanks, Tracy.” She gave a tired but polite smile to the babysitter as she turned over the night’s pay.

Tracy was a local college student that Chloe found after Maze moved out. She pocketed her money and shouldered a book-bag to ready for her departure. “I got Trixie into bed, but she was pretty nervous after I got your call earlier.”

Chloe nodded. Times like this made her feel like a crap mother. She had a dangerous job that her daughter seemed all too aware of and struggled with. “I’ll check on her. Good night.”

Lucifer stepped into the apartment moments before Tracy tried to leave. The babysitter cast an appreciative look in his direction before slipping out the door. Apparently, his disheveledness and the dried blood couldn’t cancel out whatever magnetism he commanded. But all Chloe could see was the pinched tightness around his eyes and lips.

Chloe shot a worried glance at Trixie’s closed door. She knew her daughter. It was only a matter of time before she came out to check on them. She pressed a finger to her lips, signaling him to keep quiet, and beckoned him to follow her upstairs. He followed obediently and didn’t even try to crack a sex joke or innuendo when she ducked into her bedroom. He stayed in the hallway as she dug through her closet. With a soft exclamation, she emerged victorious from the depths of her closet with an old pair of sweatpants left behind by Dan and an oversized LAPD shirt. 

She shoved both articles of clothing into his hands and directed him toward the bathroom. “Change into those and come down when you’re done. I’m going to check on Trixie.”

Lucifer shuffled away without complaint.

Chloe wavered between relief and worry. Back in her bedroom, she tore off her blood-stained clothes and buried them at the bottom of her hamper. She threw on her pajamas, figuring they’d talk for a while so she should be comfy. At the top of the stairs, she looked back toward the closed bathroom door and the sliver of light flooding out of the bottom. She sucked in a deep breath and went to check on Trixie.

“Mommy?” her daughter asked, voice heavy with sleep. 

“Hey, monkey.” Chloe sat down at her daughter’s bedside and leaned in to press a kiss to her forehead.

Trixie’s attention went straight to the bandage on Chloe’s temple. Her voice shook when she asked, “Are you hurt?”

Chloe smiled tightly, grateful she didn’t have to lie tonight. “Mommy’s fine, baby. The bad guy surprised me was all.”

“Did you catch him?”

“Yeah, we got him.” Chloe considered if it’d be wise to tell Trixie about Lucifer. But her daughter would know as soon as Lucifer came downstairs. They would not have their conversation in Chloe’s bedroom. Things were strained enough between them without introducing a volatile variable like that. “Lucifer helped,” she added.

Trixie sat up in bed. All of her previous sleepiness evaporated. “Really? Is Lucifer helping you again?”

Even before Chloe saw Lucifer’s Devil face, he had been visiting the Decker household less, making himself more and more scarce as her relationship with Pierce deepened. After she saw it, she didn’t know how to explain what had happened to her daughter. Pierce’s and Charlotte’s deaths complicated the situation enough without throwing in revelations of the celestial sort. Taking a page out of Lucifer’s book, she omitted the troubling bits and only told Trixie that they couldn’t work together because of Pierce’s case. As for what she would or would not tell Trixie after tonight...

Chloe nodded. “Yeah. Lucifer’s actually here. We have to talk, so can I count on you to stay in bed?”

“Is it about adult stuff?” Trixie asked with more than a hint of exasperation.

“Yeah.”

“Can I talk to Lucifer first? Or at least say good night? Pretty please?” begged Trixie.

Chloe opened her mouth to answer but was interrupted by, well, the Devil himself.

“Must you insist, spawn?” came Lucifer’s question from Trixie’s doorway.

Backlit by the single lamp on in the living room, Lucifer looked impossibly soft. His borrowed sweats were a little too short, but the t-shirt fit even if it pulled tight across his chest. His hair was curled and mussed like he’d been running his hands through it. The last time she’d seen him this unkempt he’d claimed to have not slept in a week. Thankfully, he now lacked that manic and desperate energy.

Chloe stood and moved to his side. With a bump of her shoulder, she nudged him toward her daughter’s bed.

“Are you sure?” he asked only loud enough for Chloe to hear. 

Chloe squeezed his elbow light as she passed. “Yeah, Trixie’s missed you too.”

Still baffled, he approached Trixie’s bed with caution. Chloe stepped out of the room and slid the door partially closed. Through the opening, she could make out the quiet murmur of conversation but not what was being said. She puttered around her kitchen to occupy herself in the meantime. Lucifer wasn’t the only one nervous about the upcoming conversation.

When he emerged from Trixie’s room, Chloe was contemplating either opening a bottle of wine or making a pot of coffee. She abandoned the thought of either after seeing his shell-shocked expression. 

“What’s wrong?” She cast a worried look at her daughter’s now closed bedroom door.

“She hugged me.”

“Trixie always hugs you, whether you want her to or not.”

“Yes, but that…” he darted his gaze across the living room, Trixie’s door, and finally her. “That was before.”

So even Lucifer categorized everything into “before” and “after.” They both had that much in common. 

Chloe nodded at the couch. “We can talk here.”

Lucifer’s flask served him as a constant companion for the first hour. When he wasn’t sipping from it, he drummed fingers against the metal. Between that and his signet ring, his hands never stilled during his brief overview of his early history. By the time he caught up to his retirement from Hell seven years ago, he had moved on to picking at the stray threads in her couch. They talked for hours until her eyelids drooped and his voice cracked. To Chloe's surprise, Trixie slept through the night despite being in the next room over.

Her head was crammed with so much new information she was surprised it didn't leak out her ears. She sensed him avoiding certain topics, but she didn't push him. Picking a fight, physical or emotional, would take energy she didn’t have. She was tapped out. 

So for tonight, she was content to let him guide the pace of their discussion. She'd have more questions later. She might even make a list. But the hard ones about them and their partnership would have to wait for another day. For tonight, she was content to learn  _ him. _

Lucifer was the Devil, the de facto ruler of Hell since time immemorial. He had a face like a third-degree burn victim’s with blazing eyes of Hellfire. He was an angel, albeit a fallen one. He had wings. He was almost as old as creation itself.

Despite all that, she found it easier to think about his issues within her limited, human framework. He had been kicked out of his childhood home for daring to question an overbearing father. He was poorly socialized after spending his formative years in isolation—eons in Hell without a support system. His paranoia was born out of a lifetime of being manipulated and scapegoated. He always pushed people past their comfort zones, acting out until they left in a vicious self-fulfilling prophecy. So he believed himself to be unlovable and a monster. To protect himself, he erected mile-high walls. Walls he periodically let down around her. 

She'd seen all that in one shape or form during her time on the force: a myriad of victims used, abused, and kicked to the curb. It broke her heart to see them all at once in him.

It made her want to punch God Himself.

Because he was also her partner, her friend, and something more that never came to be but never went away. He made mistakes, and he’d hurt her. He’d save her life multiple times. He’d saved Trixie. And she couldn’t imagine life without him anymore. 

Her head lolled back against the top of the couch. The gray light of pre-dawn cast her living room in a blue tint. It was so quiet that the world could have ended outside, but she was safe inside with Trixie and Lucifer. He contemplated a strip of light crawl across the wall. There was a solemn air to him now that they'd stopped talking. 

She spoke softly, breaking the spell that had fallen over them. "You should get some sleep."

"As should you. You're expected at the precinct, well, today." He made no move to leave the apartment or nap on her couch. Instead, he seemed content to watch her while crinkling his forehead in some deep thought she wouldn't have imagined possible when they first met. 

She knew better now. She knew him better. She knew he could be so much more if he'd let himself.

"Hey, you gotta come in and give your statement too. Don't think you're getting away so easily." Chloe nudged his exposed ankle with her bare feet. He burned like a furnace, tempting her to wedge her feet under him for warmth. Maybe that was a perk of being the Devil. No wonder he liked LA.

He yelped and tucked his knees close like a petulant child. "Yes, yes, keep those icebergs to yourself."

She had no illusions that everything would be easy going forward, but it felt so good to laugh again. 

-x-x-x-

Lucifer bounded down the steps into the bullpen two at a time. After an early breakfast cobbled from the detective's laughably stocked kitchen, he'd gone home to shower and change. Everything felt so surreal. Last night had gone well. But against all hope and reason, she accepted him for who and what he was. He was welcomed back at the precinct, and several officers even stopped him to welcome him back. 

He risked a glance toward the lieutenant's office. Someone else, a stocky man with salt-and-pepper hair long past his active duty days, occupied the space now. Some tight knot in his chest eased. There was no way Cain had survived or escaped Hell, but the irrational fear dogged him.

But other than the new acting lieutenant, little else had changed in the bullpen. He noted the addition of two new framed photos Daniel's desk: one of Daniel, Chloe, and their spawn and the other an attractive candid of Charlotte. Everyone in the family photo looked that much more world-weary. Both photos were tangible evidence of everything the Decker-Espinoza family unit had weathered in the last month.

Chloe's desk was very much the same organized chaos as before: stacks of case files piled high, Newton's cradle, drooping fern, and all. He plopped in  _ his  _ chair and announced with aplomb, "Here as requested, Detective."

"You're earlier than expected," she said, sounding both pleased and surprised.

Lucifer shrugged. He had rushed through his usual grooming routine so he could return to her side as soon as possible. Without her, his thoughts raced off in uncharitable directions. Maybe she'd change her mind. Maybe she'd turn him away and warn him never to come near her and her spawn again. 

She made it easier to breathe. But he wouldn’t tell her any of that. 

She closed the file on her desk, covering over a gruesome still of a brown-haired man with his head partially bashed him. That must have been the victim, Matthew Yamashiro. Given the body’s condition, it was no wonder Jounouchi had jumped to the worst possible conclusion.

She nodded her head toward the interrogation rooms. "They're finishing interviews with Seto and Joey now."

"Separately?"

"Yeah, not sure how much we'll get out of them cuz they came in with two very pricey-looking lawyers. Their suits probably cost as much as yours."

"Doesn't matter. We'll get everything we need out of Maxie." He waved a dismissive hand. Then he remembered he couldn't presume to have any place in her life anymore. "If I'm welcome to join you that is."

She reached across the desk and patted his hands folded over his knees. "Always, Lucifer, you're my partner."

Almost against his will, his lips quirked upwards. She answered with a gentle grin in return.

Then she stood and straightened her blazer. It was a strong navy blue that complimented her eyes. "Why don't we go check in with Ella?"

Ella shrieked when they entered her lab, forcing Lucifer to backpedal. She dropped her tray and immediately threw her arms around him. She held tight, preventing him from leaving. By Dad, had she developed angelic strength while he was away?

"You're back, buddy!" Ella exclaimed, finally stepping back and smacking his arm. The strike stung with the detective nearby.

"Yes, Miss Lopez, it's good to see you too." He quickly sidestepped her and rounded her lab table to put it between them.

They spent the next fifteen minutes reviewing the evidence. Though Maxwell had wiped down the murder weapon, he hadn't been as diligent with the rest of the crime scene. Ella matched a print pulled from the duct tape used to bind Matthew Yamashiro with prints on the guns Maxwell used at both Yamashiro's apartment and from the previous night. It was more than enough to tie him to the actual murder. 

Without warning, Ella paused mid-lecture on... Well, something. Lucifer had tuned her out not long after the fingerprints. The unexpected silence prompted both him and Chloe to turn toward the source of her wide-eyed amazement. Evidently, Jounouchi and Kaiba had finished their respective interviews. Jounouchi shook hands with the lieutenant out in the middle of the floor while Kaiba coolly dismissed the two high-powered attorneys with them. 

"Oh, my god!" Ella squealed. "He's here?! Why didn't you tell me he was here, Decker!"

"Who? Joey Wheeler? I could introduce you two," he butted in.

"No! Seto Kaiba!"

He pulled a face. He'd thought she had much better taste than that. "Really? Him?" 

"Decker!" called the lieutenant from outside the lab.

They trotted out into the bullpen with Ella trailing behind like a puppy. To Lucifer's shock, both Jounouchi and Kaiba met his gaze eye-to-eye. The former even said "morning" as if he meant it. Kaiba gave a non-committal grunt in greeting, but Lucifer had the feeling he was always like that: unsociable and no fun at all. 

"Decker." The lieutenant puffed out his chest. "Mister Kaiba and Wheeler were telling me about the bang-up job you did on the case. You're doing the department proud. Keep up the good work and I'm sure the whole thing with Pierce will blow over before you know it."

"Thank you, sir," she replied stiffly. 

He then stepped up to Lucifer and extended a hand. "It's also good to finally meet you, Mister Morningstar. You're kind of a legend around the force these days."

Lucifer debated taking the hand offered. Everything about this lieutenant oozed sycophant. Ultimately, he settled on a brief handshake as it was best not to ostracize the man in case his posting became a permanent one. If possible and if she allowed it, he wanted to keep working with Chloe. 

As soon as the lieutenant left, Ella burst into the foreground of the conversation. "Hi! I'm Ella Lopez. It's such an honor to meet you in person, Mister Kaiba? Can I call you Seto? Oh my god, you don't know what a relief it is that you weren't murdered! I mean, it's bad for our actual vic. But like I said, really really glad you're not dead."

For a moment, Kaiba had the same look as everyone else blindsided by Ella's enthusiasm and sunny attitude. Lucifer almost laughed at the sight. Jounouchi did and got a dirty look for his trouble.

“Seto is fine.” Kaiba smoothed his expression into a something Lucifer now privately referred to as a “resting bitch” face. “And you’d be surprised how many people would disagree with you about me being alive.”

Ella didn’t miss a beat in her reply. "Oh, I believe ya. We saw all the death threats you get."

Jounouchi broke down in a fit of giggles. He hugged himself as his entire body shook from the sound. Jounouchi had always been moderately handsome. But now free of the specter of grief, he glowed with life and happiness that Lucifer recognized as precious and hard-won. Jounouchi refused to say it, but he loved Kaiba dearly—enough to make a deal with the Devil. And Kaiba? Judging by the quiet affection in his eyes, he was besotted too.

Lucifer tapped Jounouchi on the shoulder. "A word if you please?"

"Uh, sure." Jounouchi smacked Kaiba across the shoulder before stepping away. "Remember to play nice. They saved your ungrateful ass after all."

For a moment, Kaiba looked like he wanted to argue but reconsidered.

Lucifer and Jounouchi walked several feet away to a quieter area but remained within view of the rest of the group. Alone, Jounouchi affected a more cautious air, but at least he wasn't fearful.

"About our deal—"

"Don't worry. I'll honor it. I'm a man of my words," Jounouchi replied briskly and squared his shoulders. His gaze flickered back to the group. "Just keep Kaiba out of it."

Well, the lack of hesitation came as a surprise. "Yes, well, our..." Lucifer pointed a finger back and forth between them. "Deal was to locate your lover's killer. But seeing as he's very much alive, I can't fulfill my end of the bargain either."

Jounouchi gaped. "So what? The deal's off? Then why'd you help catch Powers and keep a lid on the blackmail?"

Lucifer straightened his jacket and readjusted his cufflinks. "I'm not in the business of freebies, but I'll make an exception this time. Besides your case helped me resolve a long-standing issue of mine."

"Detective Decker, huh? I mean, she's gotta be the detective you told me about."

Lucifer refused to dignify him with a response. 

"Yeah, must be. She seemed way too okay with the whole Red Skull shtick," Jounouchi snickered. It was hard to mistake his tone for anything other than good-natured teasing.

"I beg your pardon," Lucifer huffed. Really? Comparing him to a campy, Nazi super-villain? Then he eyed Jounouchi suspiciously. "As are you it seems."

"As I told you yesterday, I've seen my fair share of supernatural shit. I've seen evil, human and otherwise..." Jounouchi trailed off in a whisper and cupped a hand against his left side as if he was cradling an old injury. The moment passed. He shoved both hands into his jean pockets and looked up with clear eyes. "And you're not it."

That was not an affirmation he'd expected to hear from anyone other than Chloe. But then again, Linda was still his friend. Maybe there were other humans out there that might continue to surprise him.

Oblivious to Lucifer’s discomfort, Jounouchi continued, “You’re not a bad guy. In fact, you kinda remind me of a friend back home. He was heavy-handed in the beginning with his powers, but he mellowed out with time. He even became one of my best friends.”

"We're not friends." He regarded the other man uneasily, then added for good measure, "And your boyfriend's a sodding tosser."

A wide smile bloomed across Jounouchi's face. "Yeah, but he's mine."

Lucifer couldn't wrap his head around how their relationship remained a secret. "I don't see why you bother with the charade. You clearly desire each other, so why hide it?" 

Jounouchi's grin dimmed. "Our friends and family know, that's what counts. It's different back in Japan. People are less tolerant. To make ourselves vulnerable like that..." 

"It's terrifying," Lucifer concluded. Without meaning to, his gaze slid over to Chloe. “Yes, I very much agree.”

Last night had been one of the most harrowing experiences of Lucifer’s long existence. The mix of giddiness and nerves he felt today made him want to vomit. There was no telling what tomorrow or the day after would bring. Whenever he thought he’d explored the full spectrum of feelings and sensations now made possible by Chloe, something new always blindsided him.

Because there were topics they never covered last night, namely her status as a God-given miracle. He’ll tell her soon. If not today, then tomorrow. Everything could still change afterward. Linda had been right. Chloe couldn’t make any informed choices without all the facts. But Lucifer was a selfish creature, by design or otherwise, and he couldn’t help hoping against hope and wanting what he shouldn’t.

The look that Jounouchi wore was the sum of sympathy and encouragement. Lucifer didn’t entirely hate it.

They made their way back to the others. Kaiba and Ella were engaged in a spirited discussion about holograms and augmented reality. They volleyed multi-syllabic terms and unfathomable acronyms back and forth like it was a bloody tennis match. Chloe looked vaguely bored on the sideline with nothing to contribute.

Technology wasn't Lucifer's forte, so he felt similarly unbalanced. He slotted himself next to Chloe, bumping shoulders lightly. "Well, this is a surprise. I thought for sure he'd tell her to bugger off."

"I think they'll be fine as long as Ella doesn't hug him. He doesn't strike me as a touchy-feely guy."

“That's because Miss Lopez's missing something critical."

“Lucifer,” she chided. She could hide her grin behind her hand, but not her dancing eyes.

Bolstered by her good humor, he plowed ahead, growing more and more confident. “Get your mind out of the gutter, Detective,” he said in mock disgust. “I was referring to a Duel Disk.”

To his delight, Chloe bit back a cackle that ended in a snort. Her laugh was anything but refined. It was free, full-bodied, and genuine. It was nothing like the dainty tittering espoused by Hollywood. Yet to Lucifer, who knew the Heavenly Host in singing in harmony, her laughter was the most musical sound he'd ever heard.


	5. Epilogue

Jounouchi lightly traced his abdominal scar. In that first month after his old man stabbed him, it had been red and livid. It may not be the only scar his father had given him, but it was the deepest and the most memorable one. The broken ribs from his father’s second attempt to kill him years later had healed. This scar would remain, perhaps fading with time but never gone.

His mattress dipped when Kaiba joined him, fresh from his shower and clad in a fuzzy bathrobe. With one hand he toweled his damp hair while the other tapped out a long message out on his phone. Jounouchi rested his palm flat on his stomach, choosing to admire the water droplets trailing down Kaiba's neck instead. He had enough of picking at old wounds for one day.

Kaiba dropped his phone on the nightstand and announced, "Mokuba's headed back to Domino tonight. He needs to manage the chaos at the home office."

Jounouchi's heart plummeted into the pit of his stomach. "Are you going with?"

With a deep sigh, Kaiba whipped the towel away and tossed it into the hamper against the wall. "Not until they close the police investigation. I encouraged Lieutenant Simmons to do it quickly."

Jounouchi crawled across the bed, slotting himself against his boyfriend. He looped an arm around his torso and pressed his bare chest to Kaiba's clothed back. Tucking his chin over Kaiba's shoulder, he closed his eyes and relished the warm body in his arms. He could stay like this forever. He could ignore the rest of the world for this: their private sanctuary.

"You pull a stunt like that again and I'll kill you myself."

Kaiba placed a hand over his, rubbing the bump joining his wrist to his hand. "I thought you were going to send Yami after me. Or was it Malik?"

He nuzzled against the feather hair at the base of Kaiba's neck. "Haven't decided what's most satisfying."

"Fine, but I'd prefer if you didn't make a deal with the literal Devil next time." Kaiba tightened his grip on Jounouchi's wrist ever so slightly.

Jounouchi couldn’t promise. Instead, he said, "Let's agree there won't be a ‘next time’ then."

The only sound in his bedroom was the soft rasp of air rushing in and out of their lungs. It was a reminder they were alive and together. Lured by Kaiba's warmth, Jounouchi felt his eyes droop and his breathing even out. On the precipice of sleep, Lucifer's words came rushing back to Jounouchi. Sure, putting himself out there was terrifying. But surely nothing could be as terrifying as losing the people he loved. And he loved Kaiba even though he couldn't say it out loud.

"We could stop hiding." He pressed a drowsy kiss to the spot previously adorned by water droplets. "Times have changed. If we go public with our relationship, that's one less thing they can try to hold over your head."

Kaiba fell still and silent for several long moments. Other people might see him and think he was angry. But after years and years together, Jounouchi knew better. Kaiba was planning, erecting ambitious schemes and drawing mental schematics in the span of heartbeats.

Finally, Kaiba agreed. "Let's do it."

**Author's Note:**

> [If you enjoyed this fic and want to share it on tumblr, please consider reblogging this link.](https://alectoperdita.tumblr.com/post/183412110347/fanfiction-we-do-ourselves-no-favors-lucifer)


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